


In the Absence of Light

by meeks00



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Asexual Character, BFFs, Blow Jobs, Bottom Akaashi Keiji, Brotp, Consent is Sexy, Curses, Dark Magic, Demons, Epic Friendship, Eventual Smut, Getting Together, Hunter Bokuto, Hunter Kuroo, M/M, Magic, Minor Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Multi-POV, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rimming, Shapeshifting, Slow Build, Smut, Soul Bond, Top Bokuto Koutarou, Witch Akaashi Keiji, Witch Hunters, Witch Kozume Kenma, Witches, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:35:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 50,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27031270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meeks00/pseuds/meeks00
Summary: In which Akaashi is a witch, and Bokuto is a witch hunter. Kuroo turns into a cat, and Kenma’s second-favorite hobby is building traps. What could possibly go wrong?—Bokuto lilts another crooked grin at him. He taps a finger against the charm resting against Keiji’s chest with fondness softening his features so clearly even in the dark. “Stay the night?” he asks.Keiji finds himself smiling back helplessly and nodding before he can even think about what a truly, magnificently bad idea this is.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji & Kozume Kenma, Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, Bokuto Koutarou & Kuroo Tetsurou, Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou, other - Relationship
Comments: 147
Kudos: 414
Collections: Recommended KuroKen Fics





	1. what we do in the shadows

**Author's Note:**

> I love the idea of a magical Bokuto with a sword. That's it. That's the impetus of this story. 
> 
> Playing around with alternating POVs. :D
> 
> (Also, if you're here for the smut, it's in chapter 4. lol)

Koutarou dodges a paw the size of his head. It glows a deep, jungle-green shade as it swipes at him, claws extended, and he feels the dark energy burn along the skin of his cheek as one claw misses by an inch. 

He ignores the itch of the burn as the hellhound roars, the sound deafening, the sight of long fangs and spittle terrifying. But Koutarou just narrows his eyes, feeling a vicious grin stretch across his face and the sharp heat of adrenaline pump through his veins. 

This is what he’s good at. This is his goddamn job. 

As he jumps to rebound off the alley wall, he flips backwards to dodge the shadow creature’s whipping tail ending in a vicious-looking barb. A ball of red suddenly shoots out from his left to intercept the next swipe of the creature’s claws before they rip open his belly. He laughs as the red ball meets the creature’s paw in a bright crackle of light, blowing it back. 

Quickly, Koutarou darts in, seeing an opening as the hellhound regains its footing with a pained roar. He lands firmly, planting his feet, and bends deep through his legs. He feels a rush as he takes a flying leap up, light energy running through him to power his jump. Drawing his sword back with his right hand and calling up more power, he pulls it forward to grip the hilt with both hands and drives it straight and true into the hellhound’s torso. The shining gold of his sword channels his power and shines brighter, its point hitting home in the shadow creature’s core as it releases a piercing howl. 

And then it collapses all at once, before dissipating into the asphalt like water slipping through sand. Only the echo of its last cry hangs is the only evidence of it ever existing. 

Without its supernatural glow, he and Kuroo are washed in just the faint light of a street lamp from across the street. 

Koutarou whoops as he lands firmly back on the ground. “Oh man, Kuroo. Did you see that! One blow! Just one right to the core!”

He gets a slice of a grin in response. Kuroo’s hands are still crackling with remnants of his red light energy. “Nice kill, Bo.” Kuroo steps to where the shadow fell and kneels down, head tilted slightly. 

“Yeah! I’m one of the top five hunters among the guilds, remember?” Koutarou traces a ward on his sword. He can’t help but smile at the barely-there glimmer of gold left in its wake as it shimmers away into a pocket realm for safekeeping. He moves to crouch down next to Kuroo, seeing a strange expression on his face. “Uh - your block was top notch! Like, you’re always really good with the timing. I’d probably, I mean, I think I could’ve taken the blow, but it would’ve hurt like a bi- “

“Yeah yeah,” Kuro replies, waving a hand lazily at him. 

Koutarou slaps at it. “Yeah yeah, what. I was giving you a compliment!” He’s keyed up from the adrenaline of the fight, quick as it was. “So...I know it’s a bad omen that we’re seeing more shadows pop up, negative energy rising and off the charts and all, but it feels pretty good to be active,” he says. Something pings his senses, and he glances down where Kuroo runs his fingers over the ground. “Wait, what’s that?”

The asphalt glows faintly green under Kuroo’s touch, lines snaking with the light before fading again. Kuroo pulls his hand back, grimacing. 

“A casting?” Koutarou exclaims. Unease creeps into his belly. Sometimes shadow creatures like the hellhound can pass through realms, but they also can be forced from one to the other. It takes a hell of a lot of dark energy to do something like that though. 

“This shadow wasn’t natural,” Kuroo confirms, frowning. “Someone summoned it. Fuck.” 

Koutarou runs his hand over the same spot and feels a sharp zing at his fingertips, the green glow fainter this time. “So there’s a _witch_ in town? Fuck is right,” he says, then pauses, thinking. 

They haven’t had honest-to-god witches in _years,_ maybe even a couple of decades by now. They’d all been wiped out by the light guilds and their shadow hunters, like Koutarou, or went deep underground into hiding among the broader non-magical community. Since then, the portals between the shadow realm and this one have slowly been seeping closed with few creatures cropping up to terrorize the general, unseeing population.

“What’re they after, then? Hellhounds are trackers!”

Kuroo is shaking his head. He traces a cleansing rune over the casting. It flashes red once, then fades, taking the casting with it so it can’t be used again. “No idea, bro. I’ll check in with the rest of Nekoma and see if anyone’s caught wind of anything. Karasuno too. Sawamura mentioned an uptick in shadow creatures like the rest of us.” 

Koutarou makes a noise of assent as he swings his arms around to cool down. “I’ll report back to Fukurodani. But I’d have heard about it by now if anyone in the guild noticed anything.” As the guild’s ace, their top hunter, he’s typically in the loop about disturbances in Fukurodani’s territory. 

Kuroo flexes his fingers like he can still feel traces of the casting. “Just - just keep an eye out, Bokuto. Maybe don’t go solo for a while, you know? Hit me up to back you again while Konoha’s out.” 

“Yeah,” Koutarou says. He feels himself wilt a bit at the mention of his partner. Konoha’s taking time off while his wife’s on bed rest, and he’s happy for them, really. But patrolling or responding to calls on his own has been pretty boring. It was just on the off chance that he’d been out for dinner with Kuroo when he got the report of a dark energy spike. 

“Plus, Lev’s been pestering me to let him out on more calls for our guild, so I’ve got Yaku on point with him.” 

Koutarou laughs. “That freaky tall kid who misses half his blows? Poor Yaku-san!” 

Waving a hand over a laugh, Kuroo says, “He’s just posturing. He actually likes training rookies. But he says they need tough love. Especially ones like Lev who can’t seem to keep to keep our work a secret. Nekomata’s gonna kick his ass - or mind wipe him and send him back out into the world. He used to be an amateur model, do you believe that?” 

Bokuto just laughs. He can’t imagine being a part of the unseeing world, never knowing about light and dark energy, about the creatures that traverse between the realms. He doesn’t think too hard about his own past in this world, just that it’s where he belongs. 

But there are some good things outside of the magical community, of course. “Hey, what time is it?” 

“Just about 8. You off the clock now that the hellhound’s out?” 

“Yeah - I’ll report in later. Think I’ll head over to the shop though.”

Kuroo gives him a look out of the corner of his eye as he adjusts his black duster coat, the hem sweeping around his calves. “You finally gonna give your pretty boy that warded charm you’ve been holding onto?”

Koutarou pats down his own beige duster, searching each of the pockets. He’s relieved when he feels the slip of metal in the inside pocket against his chest. “What? No! I mean - who? Shut up, Kuroo!”

Laughing, Kuroo raises his hands defensively and says, “I’m not telling on you or anything. May as well give it to him. It’s not like he’ll know what it is anyway.” He pauses, opening his mouth as if to continue, but then he shakes his head with another smirk. “Yeah, just give it to him already. Maybe you’ll stop worrying about him getting cursed or running into a shadow. I’m not prepared to deal with your mood if - “

“Stop! Don’t even say it. And - and I’m not even worried about him! I - he - I just like his store! It’s the only place that has a gel that can hold my hair!”

“Sure. Keep telling yourself that, bro.” With that, Kuroo claps his hands together, red light beaming. In the wake of the flash, Koutarou blinks and sees a black cat staring back at him. His expression is somehow more judgemental than when Kuroo was in his human form. 

Koutarou just sighs, flipping Kuroo off over his shoulder as trudges out of the alley. 

.

The little beauty shop is just a few blocks away. When he sees the awning, he takes in its muted color - a dusky red that looks as though time and the elements have stolen its vibrancy, but it’s a comforting sight as he heads in. Inside, the small space reminds him of one of his guild’s apothecaries. Tall shelves line the walls with just two aisles breaking up the space. They’re filled with pretty jars and containers of countless products Akaashi makes in house. 

Koutarou pauses for a moment, glancing around. The shop is empty, so he quickly sketches a symbol in the doorway to refresh the protective sigil he placed there when he dropped by last week. His energy is still amped up from the fight, so it flashes a brighter gold with more power than he’d originally intended to use. 

He hears a thump and a clatter and turns to see Akaashi’s dark head of curly hair bent over a spilled mess of products on the floor, a basket tilted on its side at his feet. When he glances up through his curls, his eyes are wide. 

Koutarou has a moment of panic that he was caught casting, but Akaashi’s face simmers back to his normal expression - or lack thereof, really. Koutarou grins wide and runs a hand behind his head, feeling nearly dizzy with relief. “Hey hey, Akaashi!”

“Bokuto-san,” Akaashi says with a nod in greeting. His hands are winding in the fabric of his apron. He seems unusually anxious, and Koutarou is glad he stopped by. Sometimes even those who aren’t involved in the magical realm are sensitive to negative energy fluctuations.

“You’re still open for a bit, right? I was in the neighborhood!” 

“We - yes. Welcome.” 

Akaashi seems frozen, hovering over the things he’s dropped, so Bokuto walks over. He kneels down to straighten the basket and starts filling it with the scattered bottles, jars, and canisters. Luckily nothing’s broken. 

“Thank you,” Akaashi says quietly, watching him carefully. 

Unfortunately, it's usually Koutarou dropping things in the shop when he visits, so he takes special care to handle the items gently. 

“I was just - are you looking for anything in particular tonight, Bokuto-san?” 

Koutarou can’t help but grin at him when he stands, hauling up the basket with him. He’s not that much taller than the shop owner, but years of training and clearing shadows has made him strong and bulky with muscle where Akaashi is lean. By comparison, Koutarou feels like a giant when facing Akaashi’s almost delicate frame up close like this. 

He feels his chest constrict when their eyes meet and laughs to cover the feeling. “Just having a good night and figured I’d swing by to see what you’re up to!” 

Akaashi blinks up at him, and Koutarou wishes he could read him better. “Ah. Well, it’s always quiet right before closing time. I was going to mix bases for some soothing soaps before I head out.”

Feeling a bit like he’s intruding, he asks, “Can I help? I can walk you home after! It’s getting dark much earlier now, Akaashi. You shouldn’t be out so late!” 

Akaashi lips twitch, and Koutarou wonders if maybe it might have been a smile. “I’m quite capable of walking home on my - “ His words trail off. 

It’s only because Koutarou is watching him so carefully that he sees when Akaashi’s eyes catch on his face in one particular spot and feels his stomach drop. Residual burns from shadow creatures have a tendency to burn black versus scalding the skin red. To someone unfamiliar, it must look pretty jarring. 

Akaashi reaches out with one hand. He glances briefly into Koutarou’s eyes before his fingers land on his jaw and tilt his face slightly. “What happened here, Bokuto-san?” 

“Oh! I just - “ he pauses, fighting to keep his words to himself. 

He wishes he could tell Akaashi all about the one-hit kill to the hellhound. Who wouldn’t be impressed by that, right? Koutarou’s sure customers flirt with Akaashi all the time, because he’s so beautiful and nice and helpful and amazing, but if he could share even a little bit about his job and his power and his success record, he’s pretty sure Akaashi would be impressed. Probably. Koutarou’s the fourth best hunter among all of the guilds even, let alone Fukurodani’s ace. That’s pretty cool, right? Maybe even the coolest. 

But he can’t tell Akaashi anything about himself at all. It makes him deflate a bit, which Akaashi seems to notice because his eyes narrow back at him. 

“Ah - it’s n-n-“ Koutarou swallows. His body seems incapable of saying it was nothing, and rightly so, because it was a fucking cool kill. “I just - just - ” He coughs a laugh at his stuttering. He’s not usually so tongue tied, but he guesses he’s just not used to having Akaashi pay such close attention to him. 

“Just?” Akaashi asks, leaning closer. 

Koutarou swallows at how close their faces are. Akaashi’s eyes are a really deep blue-green color, and it’s really distracting. He finds himself drawn forward, and words start tumbling out of his mouth. “Uh - I - I was _really_ good, Akaashi! Just now. Around the corner in the alley, actually! I was - I - I - ” 

He feels his cheeks warm a bit and laughs at himself, snapping his mouth shut. He’s suddenly nervous he’s going to spill everything about a world that Akaashi knows nothing about and can never know about. Because if Koutarou did go against guild laws and let the knowledge slip, he’s pretty sure Kuroo would laugh his ass off as Koutarou was exiled from Fukurodani, mind wiped and sent clueless and defenseless into the non-magical world. 

“It looks like - “ Akaashi starts, but then he stops and pulls back. 

“A fight! It was a fight,” Koutarou blurts out.

Fuck. He’s really fucking himself over right now. He’s not the best at keeping secrets, but this is one he’s grown up protecting, and for some reason an explanation is trying to tumble out of him. It must be Akaashi’s damn eyes. He’s really fucking pretty. Fuck. 

“But it was fine! I’m fine! Everyone’s safe! You’re safe! Nothing can get you while I’m here, Akaashi! I - ” Koutarou slams a hand over his mouth. 

He feels red heat crawl up his back to his ears, feels it spill across his cheeks as Akaashi eyes him warily at his verbal diarrhea and just starts laughing at himself. He’s been to the shop every week for a few months at this point but only just became familiar and comfortable enough to ask to spend more time there. 

“Fuck me, Akaashi. You gotta stop me. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me - “

“It’s all right, Bokuto-san.” The quiet statement is delivered so tiredly that Koutarou’s laughter dies in his throat. 

“No, Akaashi! I want - it’s just - “ He makes a frustrated sound. 

Akaashi waves a hand in dismissal. “You can stop. You don’t have to tell me. Take a deep breath and follow me.” 

Koutarou gulps in a breath. Then he lets out a big sigh at Akaashi’s retreating back, feeling something release in his chest. He adjusts his grip on the bin and moves it over to sit on his hip as he follows. They get to the register, and Akaashi leans over the counter, pulling something from behind it. It’s a squat little jar, and when he twists it open, Koutarou eyes the sparkly cream gel Akaashi scoops up. His chunky sweater is a deep maroon bordering on black and so loose that the sleeves spill over his knuckles. Bokuto feels his heart thump at the sight of the inches of his exposed, slender fingers. 

“Ooh. What’s that?”

“Bend down please.” 

Koutarou does as asked and feels his eyes widen as he peers down at Akaashi’s concentrated expression. The gel is cool on his cheek, like a relief to the burn he didn’t realize had been simmering there. Akaashi rubs it gently into his skin. Koutarou tries not to show that his heart tumbles in his chest.

He’s lucky it had just been a peripheral graze from the heat of the creature’s claws. If he had made actual contact, Koutarou would have had to report into Komi for healing immediately after vanquishing it. Shadow venom is no fucking joke. 

Suzumeda had gotten clawed across her back during a particularly nasty fight with a herd of creatures their team had faced a couple of months ago. She’d actually shoved Konoha out of the way to take the hit. Under heavy sedation spells and potent pain-relieving potions, she’d told Komi later that she didn’t want Konoha’s kid to grow up without a father. 

Komi had mentioned it to Koutarou in the quiet of the guild healing room. He’d been exhausted from tending to Suzumeda and confessed the story to Koutarou, who leads the guild’s hunters. And then, well, Koutarou had told their entire team at Suzumeda’s get-well party because he was proud of her, and it was goddamn heroic, and everyone should appreciate that level of dedication and teamwork. 

After a moment, Akaashi pulls away. Koutarou runs his fingers over the burn, and he barely even feels a sting. “Wow! What is that? You’re amazing, Akaashi! It doesn’t hurt at all now! Thanks!” 

He sees a tinge of pink in Akaashi’s cheeks before the store owner turns and moves to place the jar back beneath the counter. “Don’t mention it, Bokuto-san. It’s just a little something I keep on hand.” 

Later that evening, after Koutarou fumbles over epsom salts and aloe to help Akaashi with his soaps, he waits until the shop’s locked up. 

“You sure I can’t walk you home?” he asks. He looks up and down the street, calling up a subtle hint of power to see if he can detect anything untoward in the area. 

“I’m sure, Bokuto-san. I’m not as helpless as you seem to think.” 

Koutarou makes a loud noise of protest. “Akaashi! I don’t think you’re helpless!” 

Akaashi graces him with a small uptick at the corner of his lips, and Koutarou sighs. “See you later, Bokuto-san.” He curls his fingers in a slight wave before heading down the street.

Koutarou watches him go, Akaashi’s figure becoming smaller and smaller as he gets farther away beneath the soft light of the streetlamps. He puts a hand to his cheek, where the skin is barely raised and tingles just a bit from numbness. The wide grin that stretches across his face barely even pulls on the burn now. 

A thought suddenly comes to mind, and he pats at his breast pocket. The thin metal of the charm presses into his chest with the motion, and he groans. 

“Goddamn it!” 

///

Keiji finally feels he’s walked far enough and turns a corner. He stops and slowly peeks around the edge of the building, but Bokuto is no longer in sight. He breathes out a heavy sigh and leans against the wall. 

He’s almost positive he’s not being followed, but he pulls out a compact mirror from his pocket to be sure. Bokuto seems to take everything Keiji says at face value and seems almost childishly innocent - for a witch hunter, that is. 

Keiji is not so trusting. He sketches a quick rune onto the mirror’s surface. It flashes blue-green, a weak light, but it’s just enough to scatter across a mile radius for magical energy. He sees a faint dot on the mirror approximately where the shop is. He’s sure it’s flagging the protective sigil Bokuto had placed and refreshed today. 

Keiji is still incredulous at how brazen the hunter is with his magic when just anyone could catch him in the act - like Keiji had earlier. It had been surprising how bright the casting was, and he’d felt the heavy beat of fear hammer in his heart. If Bokuto could cast at that level on just an elementary sigil, there’s no telling just how powerful he really is with a hunter’s relic in hand.

Apart from that blip, the mirror shows nothing but a strong beam of light energy quickly approaching the opposite end of his radius - Bokuto himself. Keiji pockets the compact and takes just another moment to breathe and calm his heart. 

He’s surely a fool. There was no reason to call attention to the burn on Bokuto’s face, but Keiji has always been particularly sensitive to dark energy. It thrums through his veins, itches at the tips of his fingers and along his wrists. 

And there’s just something about Bokuto’s open demeanor and bright gold eyes. Keiji almost couldn’t help but want to diminish the residual dark energy burning on his skin. The product he’d used was an emergency stash he always has on hand and laden with a potent cleansing spell to negate any magical energy. 

It helped that his backup was the truth-telling casting Keiji had placed around the shop. If he’d given himself away, he’d hoped the spell would induce Bokuto to confess his knowledge of Keiji's ability to channel dark energy. But after the amount of light energy he’d witnessed firsthand from the hunter, he’s not surprised that Bokuto had been able to resist the sigil’s power to a certain degree when talking about the source of his burn.

Keiji is so lost in thought that the brief walk home goes by quickly. When he gets to the apartment, Kenma is curled up on the far side of the couch beneath a blanket, a red scarf wrapped loosely around his neck. His handheld console is nearly pressed to his nose. 

Keiji closes the door, and he sees Kenma’s eyebrow twitch, basically a boisterous greeting. 

“I have a confession to make.”

Kenma’s eyes dart up, but they immediately return to his game. Keiji collapses onto the other side of the couch, swinging his legs up and tucking them under Kenma’s blanket-clad legs with little resistance. He waits. 

Moments later, the faint music from the game goes quiet, and Kenma settles the console in his lap. “What did you do.”

“The witch hunter came by tonight.” Keiji pauses and clears his throat. “He’d obviously been in contact with a shadow creature quite recently. He came in with a dark energy burn.”

Kenma blinks at him, expression bland. 

“He was in rare form today. Though his energy levels always seem to run high. But he was very vibrant this evening. It was almost blinding. He refreshed the protective sigil on the entryway again. Touching really, but unnecessary, all things considered.”

“Akaashi.”

“The burn looked strange on him though. Like it was putting a void on his magic. I thought I would just - “

“Akaashi.”

“- provide a light cleansing with the fresh batch of the cleansing cream I’ve been working on. No harm, no foul.”

“Keiji.” 

Keiji is quiet for a moment. “He seems like a good one, Kenma.”

Kenma’s focus is unwavering. “There’s no such thing as a good witch hunter.”

“Under the truth sigil’s power, he said that I was safe and that nothing would - “

“He’ll kill you if he learns the truth about you.”

At that, Keiji shuts his mouth with a click. He takes in the sharp look in Kenma’s eyes and swallows, trailing his gaze up to the ceiling. He lets his body sink against the back cushions. “I know.”

“Did you let the truth sigil help you at all? Is the hunter at all suspicious of you?”

“No. He’s terribly naive.”

“This generation of hunters tends to be. The guilds hide the truth of what it was like when witches were in power. What happened to them when the balance of energy began to shift to favor the light.”

Keiji watches Kenma bend his head forward, tucking his chin into his scarf. He doesn’t pick up his game. Instead, he hides behind the blonde curtain of his hair. 

“But we remember,” Kenma says quietly. 

Keiji thinks of the dark marks like a necklace around Kenma’s neck that always remain hidden beneath a scarf. 

And then Keiji thinks of his own slew of thick, raised lines and etchings wrapped around his wrists under the cuffs of his sleeves. He swallows, pressing his feet more firmly into the warmth of his friend’s legs. 

“We remember,” Keiji whispers. 

That night, he closes his eyes, trying to find it in himself to fear a flash of pure, bright gold, to imagine betrayal and hatred making it go cold. 

Instead, he falls asleep feeling strangely warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Next chapter summary:**
> 
> Akaashi remembers his first encounter with Bokuto’s hair. Kuroo has a cat adventure around town. Kenma befriends (catches) a familiar. And Hinata is definitely cursed. Probably. Maybe.


	2. when the black cat prowls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akaashi remembers his first encounter with Bokuto’s hair. Kuroo has a cat adventure around town. Kenma befriends (catches) a familiar. And Hinata is definitely cursed. Probably. Maybe.

The next morning, Keiji rushes to the shop a little earlier to redo all of the soaps Bokuto had helped him with last night. With a witch hunter literally watching his every move, he’d been unable to cast any supportive spells on the products.

He can’t seem to find it in himself to regret the evening though. Not that he’ll be sharing that bit of information with Kenma.

They grew up together, they learned to craft spells together, and now they survive together. 

But there are some things that Keiji keeps to himself. It’s not necessarily because he has secrets, but more so perhaps that he - and Kenma too - have experienced just enough in this world to want to hide just a bit, in any way they can. Beneath even that, it is perhaps that they want to have nothing else - or at least nothing known - that can be used to hurt them. 

Their apartment, for example, is sparse. Neither of them has much to their names that hold sentimental value. All of that has long since been left behind. If they need to pack up and run tomorrow, it wouldn’t be hard to leave with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Though, they had allowed themselves to indulge in an apartment with many windows - large enough to fit through, of course, but also to let in as much light as possible. They’d seen enough darkness in their lifetimes. 

Though, of course, with as much light as they allow in, the deeper the shadows become. 

Keiji looks down at the jars of liquid soaps and upends their contents back into a large tub. He begins to drawn on a minuscule amount of dark energy, ignoring the unease that runs up his spine as he does so, and waits until the tub glows a deep, blue-green color. He stops channeling as soon as the burn along the individual etched lines around the circumference of his wrists grows too strong. He’d hate to accidentally add another one. 

When Keiji is done channeling his faint power into the product to enhance its soothing properties, he rubs absently at his wrists. He makes quick work of mixing smaller batches with essential oils so the soothing soaps have different scents, and then he begins to funnel them back into the jars. 

It’s nearly time to open the shop once he's done, so he heads to the second aisle to add them to the shelves. One item in particular catches his eye one shelf over, and he pauses, staring at it. 

It’s relatively new and was really only created for one person. That it exists at all should be enough of a red flag in Keiji’s own mind, but he can’t help but always make sure it’s stocked - just in case.

When Bokuto first wandered into Elixir a couple of months ago, his white and gray-black hair had not yet been styled in the gravity-defying spikes that Keiji’s grown accustomed to. He’d been quiet and sullen as he dragged his feet inside, shoulders slumped, and his gold eyes trailed listlessly over the shop’s shelves as if already disappointed. 

Keiji had felt a twinge of annoyance at that. Nonetheless, he’d resolutely approached him to offer assistance. “Welcome to Elixir. May I help you?”

Bokuto’s eyes had landed on him then, and he suddenly seemed frozen in place. He barely even seemed to be breathing. 

Keij had accepted the uncomfortable and tense moment with learned grace. Customers had a tendency to act like this. 

He asked Kenma about it once when he first opened the shop and received a few too many uncomfortable stares. Kenma had eyed him, gaze climbing from Keiji’s nondescript boots, up the tapered legs of his tan trousers, to the button-up in place of one of his usual chunky sweaters. Granted, the shirt had been more form-fitting than usual - a dark blue denim piece from the back of his closet - in an effort to dress up for the first week that the store was open. It was long-sleeved, of course. He liked button-up shirts solely because he could secure the cuffs in place over the marks on his wrists. 

After his perusal of Keiji’s entire figure, Kenma’s expression had just flattened out with what seemed strangely like exasperation, and he hadn’t deigned to answer. 

Keiji had decided it was the shirt that was particularly offputting and later added it to his donation pile. 

When it kept happening though, he had been resigned to the fact that it was likely his natural stony expression that disconcerted people - and not a little irritated that he’d given away a perfectly fine shirt. But it is what it is. He can’t do much about his face. 

Facing the same reaction in Bokuto that first time wouldn’t have been terribly out of place, except for the way that Bokuto reacted moments later. 

“Hi!” he’d exclaimed. “Are you new in town? I’ve never seen you before - I would have remembered!” 

Whatever despondent spell he’d been under had dissipated like smoke in a breeze. In its place was a level of attention that was, quite frankly, a bit overwhelming. His eyes had positively gleamed as they caught on Keiji’s. His unfairly broad shoulders straightened, allowing him to reach his full height. Altogether, it was the full force of Bokuto’s inherent self that froze Keiji in turn. 

“I - yes,” Keiji had replied stiltedly. “Our grand opening was just two weeks ago. Welcome.” 

This time, when Bokuto had looked around, his eyes flashed from one item to the next, to and from all corners of the shop, but they kept sliding back toward Keiji every few seconds. “Wow. This is really great!” 

It had been a bit surreal, and Keiji’s initial annoyance had evaporated as quickly as Bokuto’s own sullenness. “Thank you, sir.”

“Bokuto!” had been the loud response. “Koutarou. Bokuto Koutarou. Is me. That’s my name. You can call me that.” He’d brought a hand up rub behind his neck as if embarrassed. 

Keiji had worked very hard not to stare at the curl of his bicep. It had perhaps been the hardest thing he’d had to do since opening the store. “Well,” he’d said slowly, still working really hard not to stare, “thank you, Bokuto-san.”

Bokuto had stared at him some more, this time with a big grin stretching across his face, presumably at the use of his name. Though another customer had wandered in just then, Keiji had felt stuck to his spot like an insect to a pinboard as Bokuto continued to look at him with an air of expectation. Keiji had stared back himself, uncertain. Strangely enough, it looked like Bokuto’s hair was raised slightly higher than it had been when he’d first entered the shop. Keiji had thought he must’ve been mistaken.

“So what do I call you?”

“Akaashi,” he’d replied slowly. “Akaashi Keiji.” 

“Akashi!” Bokuto said with a grin. He started picking up items and then putting them back. 

Strangely flustered, one, by the mispronunciation of his name, two, by the rapid change of mood, and three, by the messy way Bokuto was replacing the products back onto the shelves, Akaashi slowly moved to stand beside him. “Akaashi,” he corrected. 

“Akamshii!” Bokuto said joyfully. He turned to face Keiji, and his eyes danced with humor. 

Keiji had frowned, and Bokuto had laughed. It was a boisterous laugh, but despite it’s volume, somehow it sounded implacably genuine. Over time, Keiji had come to find that there was nothing about Bokuto that was _not_ 100% genuine, except perhaps for the minor (incredibly important) detail of his occupation. 

“I’m kidding. Sorry, sorry. Your name is really pretty, Akaashi! Just like - “ He’d shut his mouth firmly then and instead walked briskly to the set of shelves further down the aisle. “What’s this?” 

Keiji glanced at another customer who entered the at the front of the shop, offering a quiet, “Welcome,” as he went to follow Bokuto. He eyed the jar as the man sniffed at it. “That’s a candle, Bokuto-san.” 

“Wow! What about this? What’s this do?” He held up a small bottle from the shelf below. 

“That’s a facial moisturizer.”

“Huh? Lotion just for the face?”

Keiji wasn’t sure what his face was doing, but Bokuto suddenly leaned his own closer as if to watch Keiji’s more carefully. 

Keiji leaned back slightly. “Mm - yes. Some people have very sensitive skin. Or wish to negate the effects of aging. We have many different types of products to meet their needs.” 

“No shit? I had no clue! How about me - think I need a special lotion for my face? I mean _moisturizer_?” He was still grinning that shining, sincere grin as he rubbed at his cheeks. The motion was oddly childish on his large form, yet strangely endearing. Unfortunately, it also emphasized how broad and muscled his shoulders and arms were. 

Keiji felt embarrassed then at how affected he was. Generally, he wasn’t often affected by much at all. He had swallowed and turned to the shelf, straightening the items Bokuto continued to pick up and then put back. “I think you’re fine,” Keiji replied, voice dropping in his moment of uncertainty. 

“Aghashee!” Bokuto had exclaimed, delighted. 

Keiji stepped back, feeling his cheeks heat up. “Were you hoping to find anything in particular here, Bokuto-san?” It was an attempt to distance himself, maybe, but it did little good. No good, even. 

“Oh yeah!” Bokuto snapped his fingers and pointed finger guns at him. Keiji immediately and resignedly lamented his taste in men. “Hair gel.” He pointed at his hair, which, again, Keiji swore had risen more still since Bokuto had walked in. It was nearly standing straight up by then, and to a near-gravity-defying degree. 

“I have hair products this way, if you’ll follow me.” Keiji led the way, more than a little disconcerted about the hair, honestly. He glanced back to check - and yes, it _was_ standing straight up - and Bokuto raised his thick gray eyebrows happily above that brilliant smile at the attention as he trailed behind. 

Keiji would have been lying if he said he hadn’t been flattered. Bokuto was inarguably a handsome man with a vibrant, undeniably charismatic presence. That much was clear from being in his proximity for even just a few minutes. 

Keiji figured he himself was all right to look at. The few men he’d gone out with in the past had mentioned it before, though he hasn’t had much luck in the romance department recently. And not in small part because of his apparent inability to establish close connections with anyone who wasn’t the one and only lifelong friend he had had since he was a child. His brief stints with boyfriends had left him with a resounding consensus among them: he was, according to them, too cold or too distant or too blunt or too sharp. Too much in too many ways. After a while, it felt like more work to try being “warm” than to let his relationships naturally come to an end. 

Every time Keiji has explained the reason he’s been dumped each time, Kenma’s face had crunched inward into that rare, yet no less intriguing, scowl of his that made his eyes shrink, his nose scrunch up, and his lips thin out into a wrinkled, wobbly line. 

“My hair is uncontrollable,” Bokuto had explained back then. “Seriously. I need it to stay up. Sometimes it just - “ He paused when he ran his fingers through it, appearing just as surprised as Keiji had felt that it was standing straight up. “Uh - it - um.” 

Keiji had had an inkling then about what “it” was. It took a few more visits, not just a few instances of Bokuto’s flagrant inability to hide his use of magic, and eventually the familiar appearance of a uniform duster with a small guild patch on the left breast for Keiji to fully cotton on to the reality of what Bokuto was. It had then taken another couple more visits for his fear to be sloughed away bit by bit by the force of Bokuto’s pure nature. His apparent determination to stop by the shop just to hang out for a while, even if Keiji was busy around the store, may have helped as well. 

Finally, Bokuto had filled his arms with every single (unspelled) styling product in stock that Keiji had recommended, despite Keiji’s protests that he should just try one at a time. But Bokuto had been adamant about supporting a new small business in the neighborhood. “Because we’re neighbors now, Akaashi!”

Keiji shakes his head at the memory with a private smile. It is what it is, right? He can’t do much about what he feels. And maybe it’ll be ok, no matter what Kenma says. 

He looks around the shop, noting the quiet atmosphere, and thinks it wouldn’t hurt to try to improve the strength of his unspelled hair gel formula. 

///

Koutarou hums a tune under his breath, eyeing the selection of books on Yamiji Takeyuki’s shelves while the Fukurodani guild leader stares at him from behind his desk. His hands rest lightly on his hips. That seems to be his default posture in Koutarou’s presence, but Koutarou is certain it’s borne from utmost respect and admiration. Really. 

“Bokuto.”

Koutarou’s in the middle of pulling out a book on demons. “Huh? Oh.” He realizes he trailed off in his report on the case last night. “Yeah. Kuroo said the casting wasn’t natural. Nekomata’s probably going to shit his pants when he hears about it.” 

He snorts, imagining Kuroo breaking the news in the worst way possible. Kuroo loves riling up the Nekoma guild leader at every opportunity. Part of it is probably because Nekomata’s a legend of a shadow hunter among the magical community. He’s also arguably the leader of all the light guilds at this point now that Karasuno’s Ukai the elder has been out of the field for so long. After his injury years ago, Ukai had begun training his grandson to take his place at the helm of Fukurodani’s neighboring guild. 

When he glances back to see Yamiji’s reaction, he’s distracted by the scribe relic on the desk. The ornate silver fountain pen stands on its own over a journal, still transcribing his account of the case. He snickers as he turns back to the heavy tome in his hands. 

“But yeah - I saw the casting myself,” he goes on, flipping through pages and finding that a lot of its contents were unfamiliar. “There wasn’t a natural portal nearby and not enough energy anywhere in its proximity to have granted it access to this world without it. Based on the hellhound’s movements, and that it was likely borne from that casting, I’d say it was in the middle of tracking someone. It was leaking shadow energy - that wispy kind, you know? Versus pooling out to touch anything within its reach.” 

Cornering it had been a real bitch. He’ll admit that having Kuroo acting as support was a major plus - and that it was later in the evening, which meant lighter foot traffic in the shopping district. Koutarou prefers physical combat, but he’d resorted to defensive spellcasting to force the hellhound away from the main strip and into an alley. Kuroo had managed to help with both corralling the creature and casting a wide enough illusionary net spell to protect the few passersby from seeing them at work.

Koutarou pauses on a page with an illustration of a human figure, shackles etched around their neck and wrists and ending in long chains that seem to sink into the ground. He tilts his head to the side to view it from another angle. 

“Hey, do you think witches used to keep hellhounds as pets?” 

“Bokuto.”

“Like, if you could actually create a spell to contain the venom and essentially leash it’s physical essence, then you could totally keep it in this realm, right? It wouldn’t ghost on you or slip back into the shadow realm. Has that been done before?”

“Bokuto.” 

Koutarou glances up and sees that Yamiji has his arms crossed now. He thinks back on what he’s said so far and doesn’t really think he’s crossed any lines. It was just a question. “Yeah?”

“It sounds like you took care of it without issue, but how would you categorize its strength?”

The question bubbles up some of Koutarou’s own unease to the surface and wipes his thoughts of hellhound taming cleanly away. “I mean, it’s the biggest one I’ve ever come across for sure. Claws the size of my head - no lie! Hey, I told you about the one hit, right? Oh man, Yamiji, it was - “

“Yes,” Yamiji says, slicing a hand through the air to cut him off. Koutarou frowns. “Very impressive, I’m sure.” He allows a small smile saying, “I mean that. I do. But tell me about its power level, ace. Would, say, Washio have had an issue with it?”

Koutarou shuts the book and turns it over in his hands as he thinks that over. He’s worked with his current team of hunters for a few years now, training with them and analyzing their strengths and weaknesses in both spellcasting and combat skills and how they intersect. Washio often relies most on his physicality, much like Koutarou. Though where Koutarou has an almost unique ability to use his own high magical skill level to enhance his physical power, Washio’s strength lies most heavily with his strategic mindset as he outmaneuvers his opponents. It’s why Koutarou often pairs him with Onaga, who’s been working on defensive spells rooted in blocking and illusions, so there’s a balance between them with magical and combat specialties when they’re in the field. 

“Yeah,” he says simply. “It would have been tough. Pretty sure I got lucky hitting its core. I was amped up too. My power level rose almost too easily last night.” He grins. “It didn’t stand a chance!” 

Yamiji sighs, but it’s the huffy kind where it means he’s trying not to indulge in Koutarou’s antics. 

Koutarou’s grin slowly melts away as he walks over to the desk between them. He places the book down and ignores Yamiji’s pointed glance at it and then at the shelf. 

“You’re worried, huh?” he says, eyeing the old man carefully. “That the shadow creatures we’re seeing aren’t run of the mill - that they’re getting stronger with each one we face.”

Yamiji isn’t as hard to read as Akaashi. His wrinkles make way easily for smiles and scowls alike, but right now his face is drawn in what looks like concern, and maybe a hint of fear. It makes Koutarou want to fight something if only to make it go away. Yamiji had been there for him from the start, back when Koutarou had nothing except his magic and his sword. 

“I wasn’t before, but maybe I am now,” Yamiji replies, a hint of reluctance in his voice. But he’s always been honest with Koutarou - perhaps even to a fault. He is not a man who sugarcoats shit when you’ve made a mistake or pissed him off, or even if your mood is lower than the lowest realm. “You were still just a kid back when witches were a dime a dozen here in the city. But the light guilds were drowning in those days. People thought there was a surge of yakuza activity - people going missing, the gruesome deaths in news reports. They weren’t just coming after the guilds, or the broader magical community. It was everyone - everyday people. Kids.” He shakes his head as if to dispel the memory and takes a seat behind the desk.

Koutarou nudges the armchair to his right so he can plop down on it. “We won in the end though,” he says reassuringly as he leans forward to rest his weight on his forearms on the wooden desk next to the tome. “They’re gone! Or in hiding with their tails between their legs, at least.” 

Yamiji’s face pulls into a deep frown. “What makes you think that was our doing?” 

Koutarou feels his eyebrows rise in surprise. “Huh?”

Yamiji shakes his head, staring at him oddly. “We may have hunted them when we needed to, like we do any other shadow creature that terrorizes the people, but only when they used dark energy to bridge the realms. If they were causing harm. But they - ” he stops, as if he’s looking for a reaction in Koutarou. “They were people - like us - Bokuto.” 

“But _evil_ people, though,” Koutarou argues. It’s a visceral response, something that feels as integral to his worldview as the existence of the well of his own power. He pulls away from the desk and sits up straighter. “They’re fueled by dark energy. They cast with it to hurt people. They _kill_ people. And if they come out of hiding and try to do it all again, we’ll take care of ‘em!” He bangs his fist on the book before him to emphasize his point.

Yamiji presses his glasses up his nose with one finger to the bridge and nods slowly. “I suppose we will.” His gaze drops back to the book between them. “Why don’t you take that with you? Could be helpful to brush up on your knowledge on high-level shadows. I have a feeling something’s brewing. I just hope we’ll be ready for it.” 

“Of course we will, Yamiji!” Koutarou exclaims, picking up the book. He points his free hand toward his own chest with a confident grin. “That’s what you have me for!” 

Yamiji releases that huffy sigh again like he’s holding back a laugh. “Gods help us,” he says. 

Koutarou just laughs on his way out of the office.

///

Tetsurou spends less time on his hair than his teammates seem to think. After he rolls out of bed and showers, he sprays it with a heat protectant, then a little sea salt formula, and then he blow-dries it with a diffuser. Afterward, he styles it just so, massaging in some moisturizing balm and texturizer to help his bangs fall stylishly to one side. And done. 

It took much more time learning how to keep his hair intact - let alone his clothes on - while shapeshifting. If his team had to call out anything about his abilities at all, he wishes they’d call attention to that feat instead. Even Bokuto, with his honestly unfair levels of magical power, can’t shapeshift. 

This evening, he’s patrolling on his own. Daytime shifts tend to be much quieter. He knows he told Bokuto to partner up, but Tetsurou attracts much less dark energy attention in his shifter form than his hunter friend - and doesn’t seem to find as many fight-worthy altercations as quickly as a physical combat specialist might. His own specialty lies with spellcasting and long-range combat. And his cat eyes are particularly helpful during patrols, allowing him to spot flare-ups of energy, light and dark alike. 

He has a few favorite spots to hit up before he finishes his shift. One of them is, not by coincidence, Elixir, where Bokuto’s pretty boy shopkeeper leaves a bowl of water out just by the entrance. With a naked eye, he can see the power behind the protection sigil above him, and he can’t help but think fondly of his smitten friend. There’s also a shimmer of a wider-cast sigil around the shop, it’s power murkier and not golden like Bokuto’s magical signature. Instead, it has a blue-green hue. It’s not malicious, though, so he plans to check on it later. He’ll probably loop in Yaku to get his expertise on it. 

Tetsurou laps up a few sips of water and then peeks in through the glass door. It’s bustling inside, but he catches a glimpse of the owner, dressed as usual in a bulky sweater and skinny denim jeans. 

Tetsurou supposes he understands why Bokuto is so charmed by him. When he thinks about them side by side, they’re a study in contrasts. And not just in the fact that they live in entirely different worlds. 

Inside, the shopkeeper adjusts his glasses as he speaks to a patron, who leans closer than might be appropriate. Tetsurou laughs, but it sounds more like a cough out of his cat mouth. The man happens to glance his way, and Tetsurou can’t help but flash a little open-mouthed grin with a raised paw. The man’s eyebrows dart up beneath his curly bangs in surprise, and Tetsurou takes off, hacking out quiet cat laughter as he runs. 

His next stop is by a little bakery. This shop has a barn-style door, the top half of which is always left open to release the sweet aroma of the confections within and entice customers to come inside. Tetsurou is happy to oblige. 

The young man at the register, a sullen black-haired boy with bright blue eyes, watches him leap onto the barn door sill and then hop down onto the checkered tiled floors. 

“Hinata, your pet is here,” the boy calls over his shoulder. 

There’s the sound of running feet, and then he sees Hinata’s slight figure sliding over the counter. He took the run too fast and absolutely flies off the other end, landing with what looks like a painful one-two bounce on one hip before sliding to a stop right before Tetsurou. Despite his pained cry upon impact, Hinata somehow manages to offer a sunshine grin. His bright orange hair catches Tetsurou’s eye, and he whips a paw at it. He’d smirk at the resultant laugh if he could. 

“Unlucky One!” Hinata sits up and then drags a finger gently over Kuroo’s head. Kuroo doesn’t quite hate the nickname. “So, I might not be here for a while, but don’t worry. Kageyama will feed you snacks while I’m gone.” 

“I won’t. It’s unsanitary to have a cat in here,” Kageyama says. He’s leaning on the counter watching them. 

“You will too!” Hinata cries. “Or he’ll starve!”

“He won’t starve. He goes to all the businesses on the strip, idiot.” 

“But he likes us the best!”

“Hinata, you have more important things to worry about than a stupid stray cat!”

“I’m going to deal with that. I already told you!”

“Well maybe you can’t just _deal with it,_ you complete moron!”

Surprisingly, Hinata doesn’t fire back with a reply. Instead, he hugs his right hand, which is covered in bandages from the tips of his fingers up to his elbow, to his chest. His eyes start to swim with tears. 

Now that it was called to attention, something about Hinata’s wrapped arm raises the hackles along Tetsurou’s back. It’s not concern, though there is that too. 

Hinata is a sweet kid who loves the bakery and wants to be a head pastry chef one day. It’s all he talks about. He and Kageyama both. But rather than what seems like a mere injury to his hand, there’s a presence around him that feels odd. 

Even in his cat form, Tetsurou can still call upon some of his power. While he can’t exactly cast with light energy as a shifter, he can use a more natural form of magic. Now, he calls to it gently and extends it toward Hinata. 

Hinata sneezes three times in rapid succession, shoving his face into his elbow to cover it. When he blinks back up again, his eyes suddenly flash green, the outlines of a nasty sigil lighting simultaneously in each iris before they fade back into their normal light brown color.

 _Well, that answers that,_ Tetsurou thinks. _He’s touched by dark energy. And a helluva lot of it._

He makes a mental note to come back first thing tomorrow to figure out how remove it, but he’ll probably bring Kai with him in case it’s more complex than he can handle on his own. 

Today, however, after his rounds, his priority is to go back to that alley he’d been to last night with Bokuto to see if he can find a lead on the witch. 

He only realizes that he’s just been sitting there, letting Hinata pet him quietly, when Kageyama walks around the counter to them with a small bit of fish sausage in his hand. “Take it,” he says, voice gruff. 

Tetsurou is amused when Kageyama holds it out to Hinata. 

Hinata is uncharacteristically still for a moment, and then a grin explodes across his face as he peers at the sausage. He swipes a sleeve over his eyes to rid himself of his tears as he sniffs. “You’re such an idiot, Kageyama.” But he takes the sausage and holds it out for Tetsurou. 

“Dumbass Hinata,” Kageyama mutters, heading back to the register. Tetsurou stares as the back of his neck and ears turn red.

 _Aw,_ he thinks. He eats the proffered snack under Hinata’s delighted gaze. 

And then he’s off with a quiet yowl of thanks and back on the street to scout a few more spots before he heads to the alley. 

When he rounds the corner next to a game shop, it’s near dusk, the tail end of summer holding on to the last bit of light it can. The side street is cast in shadow, but the person he usually sees loitering outside isn’t there yet. 

It’s become almost routine to stop by here on most of his patrols in this area, and something to look forward to. After the game shop closes, the pudding-haired boy usually wanders out around the corner and takes a moment to pet Tetsurou. He’s probably not much younger than Tetsurou himself, but he’s a slighter figure in bulky clothes and has such an unassuming, soothing presence. 

Maybe it’s the soft way he speaks that melts Tetsurou into a similar peaceful blank mindset that he gets when he’s concentrating on channeling magic or casting something particularly complex. Or maybe it’s that he tends to wear loose clothing and long scarves for Tetsurou to catch his paws in or curl up against when he’s particularly tired after a long day.

When they meet, he usually gets a quiet greeting of, _Hello, Kuro,_ which isn’t too far off the mark really. 

And that’s the extent of it on any given day. But sometimes the boy opens up a bit more. He’s started talking about his hobby - something along the lines of designing complex formulas, but by the time he’s comfortable enough to start talking, Tetsurou's usually halfway asleep in his lap, kneading at one of his too-large scarves. 

Now, Tetsurou prowls forward, intending to sit and wait. He’s not in a rush. It’s been a while since he’s been assigned to patrol in this area - maybe two weeks now - and he hopes that hasn’t deterred the boy from coming by. 

As he wanders forward, he realizes that the neighborhood feels particularly quiet in this area. Yet as he casts out his senses, nothing seems to be amiss. 

Of course, that’s when he reaches his normal spot and his paws start to get singed on the asphalt. Yellow lines suddenly heat up in a wide circle around him, bright and blinding enough that he has to shut his eyes. He feels sticky tendrils of dark magic climbing up his limbs and the sharp beat of fear hammer in his chest.

It’s all he can do but scream as he’s swallowed whole. 

///

Kenma blinks down at the lightly penciled blueprint on the table before nodding to himself. It’s a revision for a complex binding spell he’s been working on for the last couple of weeks, and it’s finally done. If the first part of his spell does its job soon, and if this next one works according to plan, he might finally start to feel a bit less worried about the state of things. He might actually feel confident about being able to protect Akaashi.

He reaches his arms up in a long stretch, satisfied at the thought. Pushing his chair away from the table, he lets the blanket across his lap fall to the ground and wanders into the kitchen, using his toes to push down the cuffs of his skinny black pants on his way. The dim light filtering in through the wide window over the sink lets him know that the day’s already slipping later into the evening. 

Akaashi will probably be home late considering it’s the time of the year when he refreshes the spells on his products and replenishes top items in preparation for the holiday season. Though Elixir is a small shop, Akaashi’s potions work has always been subtle and effective, making his products popular among the non-magical locals. 

When his phone rings, Kenma feels his face shrink into a scowl. The last thing he wants to do right now is talk to anyone. Still, a voice in his head that sounds uncomfortably like Akaashi prompts him to pick up on the fourth ring. They’re both pretty solitary creatures and only get calls for one reason alone. 

He slides his thumb across the screen. “What,” he greets. 

“Hi! Is this Kodzuken-san?” The voice on the other end of the line is loud and bright. “I got your number from a nurse at The General. Yachi Hitoka? She said you’re a special kind of - uh - of specialist!” 

Faintly, he hears someone say in the background, “Dumbass! That sounds so stupid.” 

There’s a rustle as the main speaker covers up the receiver, but his voice still comes through loud and clear. “You’re the dumbass, dumbass!”

“What’s wrong with you?” Kenma says impatiently.

“Sorry!” There’s a pause. “Oh. Uh - my doctor says I need to have my hand amputated, but I _need_ it, Kodzuken-san! And Yachi-san said that if I came to see you, I might not have to have the procedure done!” 

The other speaker, presumably the roommate, yells, “You are _not cursed!_ ”

“Yes I _am,_ maybe!” 

“Please shut up,” Kenma says. He wonders, not for the first time, if he should make Yachi lose his number, but he does need to pay his share of the bills, and she’s always been a trusted contact at the hospital. He sighs. “Meet me downtown at Elixir, the beauty shop, tomorrow at 8 o’clock. It’ll be closed, so ring the doorbell. I accept Venmo and PayPal. I’ll invoice you when I figure out what you did to yourself.” 

“I didn’t do - “

“Elixir. Tomorrow. 8 o’clock,” Kenma repeats, and then he hangs up. He pulls up his messages and texts Akaashi. 

**_client tomorrow @ 8_ **

_Hex, curse, haunting, or ?_

**_curse_ **

_Ok. I’ll prepare a summoning circle for you.  
Will you be stopping by tonight?_

Kenma considers his recently completed blueprint. Now that he’s done his duty for the day, he figures he has some free time before his RPG online guild mates come online. 

**_yes_ **

_Will you need to be fed?_

Kenma bites back a smile as he types out his response.

**_i hate you the least_ **

_Ok._

He pockets his phone and turns to the fridge. When his pocket vibrates with another text notification, he glances at the screen.

_I hate you the least too._

No one is around, so he lets a real smile slip across his face as he stuffs his phone away again. Their fridge is empty in a way that probably should be embarrassing for two grown adults, but neither of them are great cooks and end up resorting to takeout the majority of the time. He pulls out the lone tupperware containing skinny pieces of grilled, salted mackerel. He takes one, sticks it in a baggie, and then heads back into the living room to roll up his blueprint before going to pull on his black combat boots at the foyer.

When he’s a few streets away from Elixir, he hangs a left toward his usual spot by the game shop. It’s closed by now, nightfall heavy and fresh in the air, but he never intended on going in today anyway. 

He’s feeling the strange unfamiliarity of excitement building in him. As he approaches his usual spot, he’s mildly taken aback when he sees a ball of yellow light hovering in the air against the brick wall. 

“It worked,” he breathes out. 

Part of him is glad because the wound on his palm, which he’d made to draw enough blood to power the original containment spell, had finally started to close up. It resulted in another etched mark along his neck, but this was one of those moments when the ends justify the means. At least he hopes so. 

Luckily, now he won’t have to do it all over again to refresh the power on the spell. Instead, he merely approaches the suspended light. Part of the complexity of the trap had been weaving in illusory magic. Some creatures that straddle the line between realms are especially attuned to light and dark energy, and he’d wanted to make sure his web’s magic wouldn’t give itself away. He still takes a quick glance around to make sure no one is nearby who might see him interacting with thin air. 

When he taps at the ball of light, the creature inside yowls. 

Kenma makes a soft noise to placate it. If anything, it screams louder, thrashing harder within the confines of the containment spell. 

Kenma calls up some dark energy, a very light amount that only tugs slightly at his chest and lightly burns at the marks along his neck, and then he makes sure to stop his withdrawal there. He presses a finger against the light and sketches a transformative rune. 

Slowly, the shape of the ball shivers before it begins to solidify into hard matter. The light crawls and flashes in equal measure, like electricity running along a wire, stretching out into long lines that begin to intersect. Soon enough, the containment spell takes the shape of a small cage with a curved handle on top, looking a lot like a birdcage rather than the crate shape he’d intended. He shrugs. 

When the light fades, Kenma sees a familiar midnight-black cat sitting square in the middle of the cage. 

Its hazel eyes track his movements as he squats down to peer at it. The cat hisses, its fur rising along its arched back. When it smacks a claw at the bars, the thin metal flashes faintly yellow, and it yowls angrily. 

“Hi, Kuro,” Kenma says softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for typos! Also, I may not be able to post every day, but I'm excited to get this story out there. Hope you enjoy it! <3
> 
> **The next chapter's summary:**
> 
> The cat still isn’t out of the bag.
> 
> _Note the additional tags with each chapter and the change to the rating. Thanks!_


	3. these aren’t the [witches] you’re looking for

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cat still isn’t out of the bag.

When Kenma gets to Elixer, it’s closed, so he uses his key to let himself in. He feels a brush of warmth and registers the faint golden glow of Akaashi’s witch hunter’s protection sigil in the entryway. It’s pure light energy, and almost feels like relief as he walks through it. 

Akaashi is perched at the counter by the register sticking labels on bottles. “I got you onigiri and miso soup,” he says in greeting. Further down the counter rests a brown paper take-out bag. He finally looks up and he raises his brow at the cage. “New pet?”

Kenma purses his lips and then decides to bite the bullet. “Familiar,” he replies. “Or, he will be, if I’ve designed the spell properly.” He waits, feigning nonchalance. 

“Kenma,” Akaashi says slowly, processing. He’s staring now, hands still over the bottles before him. “What spell?”

Kenma occupies himself with moving forward and setting the cage onto the counter. He peers at the cat. It keeps alternating between baring its teeth at him and batting its paws at the bars, eliciting small yellow sparks from the magic that contains it. “He’s a stray with a surprisingly high level of inherent ability.” He pauses when Akaashi doesn’t interject, then says, “His name is Kuro.”

 _”What spell,_ Kenma,” Akaashi says loudly. 

Kenma twitches. It’s rare for Akaashi to ever raise his voice. They’re similar in that way - naturally unobtrusive. Though where Kenma’s character is steeped in self-consciousness and an almost-crippling shyness, Akaashi has a firmer grip on his emotional state. That wasn’t to say he felt any less than anyone else though - as evidenced by this very moment, apparently. 

Kenma finally makes himself meet his friend’s wide-eyed gaze. “A bonding spell. To make Kuro my familiar.”

“You can’t - “

“I can.”

Akaashi shakes his head slowly, staring at him with something like horror - or terror - flooding his face. He opens and closes his mouth, but it seems he’s run out of words.

“And I will,” Kenma says firmly. “I’m only telling you now because I want to cast it tonight, and you’re still here. I didn’t want to do it at home, and I can’t do it in the back room because of the heavy protection magic in there. I figured out here might be best.”

“You - “

“I’ll be fine. I already cast a different spell to capture him.” He pauses, looking at Kuro, who is staring back at him with wide hazel eyes. The hair is raised along his back again, but he’s standing still now. Kenma reaches into his bag and pulls out the bag of salted, grilled mackerel. He takes it out and slips it through the bars. The cat stares as it drops to the bottom of the cage. 

“I cast it two weeks ago,” he says. “I can still cast small spells without pain and - and without feeling anything... different.” When Kenma looks back toward Akaashi, that feeling of guilt burns hotter in his chest. “I’m all right, Keiji,” he murmurs, quieter now. “I’m not going down the rabbit hole. It didn’t require as much dark energy as you’re probably imagining. Look.”

Kenma pulls down his scarf to expose some of the deep black, criss-crossing and overlapping lines littering his throat in a circle like a choker. The cat hisses, but Kenma ignores it. He points at the side of his neck at one of the lines that is raised and still red around the edges, as if it has been branded into his skin. It’s small compared to some of the others lining his neck.

Akaashi seems unable to speak, mouth parted slightly. He makes his way over and slowly reaches out his hands. Kenma doesn’t move. Akaashi would never hurt him. It’s the one thing in the world Kenma knows to be absolute and true. Instead, Akaashi gently unwinds the scarf around Kenma’s neck and tilts his head gently to one side with his fingertips. Kenma hears him swallow, and he feels strangely naked without the garment. 

When Akaashi pulls away, his eyes are shining in the soft yellow light of the store. 

“I had to,” Kenma says when he realizes Akaashi’s eyes are threatening to spill over. “If I have a familiar, it’ll magnify my power without forcing me to channel so much dark energy. Without marking me further. No one will hurt us if I have enough power to protect us.”

Of the two of them, Kenma has a deeper well of power. He is the one who helps to reinforce Akaashi’s spells and keeps their protection wards strong around their apartment. He freelances as a cursebreaker whenever his nurse contact at the local hospital, Yachi Hitoka, notices magical energy around her patients’ diagnoses. Like Kenma and Akaashi, Yachi traverses on the outskirts of the magical community and has become one of the few trusted contacts they have. 

In turn, Akaashi is more finely attuned to natural magic and physical properties, which makes him so proficient at potions work and crafting products. Because of that, his sensory craft skills - like tracking, detection, and illusions - have helped them avoid run-ins with shadows and otherwise. They learned long ago to steer clear of other magical wielders as much as possible - light and dark alike. 

Wherever they go, Akaashi typically is able to support them by selling homemade wares. This is the first time they’ve settled long enough in one place for him to actually build out a brick and mortar store. 

Even if Akaashi doesn’t realize it, Kenma has always known that his friend is not made for a life on the run - not like Kenma is. Where Kenma can hide away for days, even weeks, alone with online forums on craft theory, designing new spells, or playing video games, Akaashi needs more than that. He may be reserved and mistrustful and short with people, but he is still more of a social creature than Kenma is. 

And Kenma doesn’t think it’s too terrible that he wants more for the one person in his life who he cares about. The only one he has left.

Elixir may be new for them, and it may have been a risk to open, but Kenma can tell from dozens of small details that Akaashi already loves everything about it. It’s in the way that he leaves early in the morning to prepare the shop without a grumble, despite being a night owl. The way he meticulously designs new labels and toils over minute adjustments to the chemical makeup of his products. The way he’s shown more smiles recently - even at customers - than Kenma thinks he has ever seen in their lifelong friendship. And finally, worse-still, the way he’s started talking about a particular regular customer who frequents the shop. 

Kenma can’t let him lose this life Akaashi is building if they’re found again - even if Akaashi would drop it all in a heartbeat to go on the run again. They’ve already sacrificed too much.

“Why?” Akaashi asks. He’s rubbing both hands distractedly through his hair, tugging at the ends. It’s uncharacteristic enough that Kenma accepts that this conversation will continue, despite the fact that he wants to just go ahead and cast his spell and then head home and play his RPG game until the early morning hours. “We’ve been so careful. And I _told_ you that Bokuto-san - “

“It’s not about him. I couldn’t care less about that witch hunter,” Kenma says coldly. Akaashi takes a step back, an apology apparent in the way he purses his lips. Kenma sighs, feeling mildly regretful for his harsh response. “I just - I have a feeling that we may be found again. Soon. I’ve been finding more shadow creatures in my traps around town, and they’re becoming more difficult to banish. The - the magical signature is familiar, Akaashi.” 

“Then we’ll leave,” Akaashi replies easily. He drops his hands from his hair and straightens out his sweater, tugging on his sleeves. “Now.” He steps around the counter and starts rummaging beneath it, surfacing with a duffel bag that he quickly zips shut. 

“No.”

Akaashi presses his hands into the bag. “What do you mean ‘no,’ Kenma?” He looks up, and though he’s blinking back the shine in his eyes, his jaw is tight.

Kenma sighs. “We can’t live like this forever. We can’t keep running, Akaashi.”

“Yes, we can! We’ve done it before. We’re - we’re ok, aren’t we?”

“‘Ok’ is not enough. One day we’ll run out of places to hide,” Kenma argues. “And then what will we do?”

It’s an argument they’ve had before, often late into the night, when they’ve arrived in a new city with all new strangers and new sounds and new smells and the same old fears. And it always ends the same way.

“Then we deal with it then.” This time, when Akaashi says the words, his voice is almost inaudible. It’s like the fight has gone out of him, like even he knows that they’ve reached the end of the line, one way or another. 

“That’s not a life,” Kenma says softly. Yes, he’s afraid. He’s always afraid. And he knows Akaashi is too. But Kenma finally has an idea for a way forward that doesn’t involve sacrificing any more, and he’s going to do all he can to fix things. “Do you really want to leave again, Keiji?” 

Akaashi looks back down at his duffel. Kenma sees the fabric become dotted, darker from a few tears that fall from his eyes. Akaashi’s shoulders are heavy with the question. He swipes a sleeve over his eyes and sniffs quietly. The cuff pulls slightly away from his wrist, and Kenma catches a glimpse of the raised marks there. They’re quickly covered again out of habit.

“You can leave without me,” Kenma offers. It’s the most selfless thing he has ever said, but just saying the words makes him feel sick with dread. 

Akaashi’s eyes snap up. “Fuck off.” 

Kenma can’t help the twitch at his lips. It’s more from relief than humor. “Then _trust_ me.” 

With a heavy sigh, Akaash swipes a hand over his cheeks roughly. Then he tilts his head back and closes his eyes. It’s a gesture of resignation and acceptance if Kenma has ever seen one. “Eat your food, brat,” Akaashi says when he straightens. “And lock up for me, would you? I - I’m gonna walk this off.”

Kenma nods as Akaashi places the duffle back under the counter. 

When the bell chimes on his exit, it’s just him and Kuro left behind. 

///

_Well, shit._

Tetsurou has had a pretty easy day on patrol, if he thinks about it. So someone may end up asking out the pretty Elixer shop owner before Bokuto mans up and asks him out. So Hinata may be hexed or cursed or slowly being possessed. 

But all in all, it had been a relatively easy day on patrol. That’s probably what fucked him over - thinking it was a little _too_ easy.

Now, he’s alone with a witch and trapped in a cage. 

And in the mess of things that are 100 fucking percent not goddamn clear at this very moment, Tetsurou has made a few key observations. 

One, he’s certain this is not the witch he’d been looking for. Case in point, the containment spell he keeps batting his paw at flashes with a yellow magical signature, whereas the hellhound’s summoning casting had been green. And two, the conversation he’d witnessed between his captor and the object of Bokuto’s little crush made it pretty clear that they were harmless. 

_Well,_ he thinks, considering the sparks of yellow that light up under his outstretched claws, _relatively harmless._ At the very least, that they have no malicious intent to the magical population or otherwise was obvious. Instead, they seem distressingly paranoid that something is after them. He would never admit this, but it actually warmed Tetsurou’s cold little heart a bit to watch the exchange between them. The depth of friendship between them resonated in his own recognition of his relationship with his ride-or-die BFF - Bokuto. 

And honestly, he hated to see that level of fear in anyone. It sparked that overwhelming drive in him to protect above all else. He’s a shadow hunter for a reason, after all. 

But those facts didn’t address that he was trapped in his cat form and apparently going to be subjected to a spell intended for an everyday stray cat.

He watches as the witch - Kenma - rolls out a sheet of drafting paper on the counter. He has a piece of onigiri in hand as he studies it. Tetsurou glances down at the mackerel at the bottom of his cage - his favorite, in human form and shifted - and sniffs at it.

 _Fuck. That smells good._ He starts nibbling at it. Of course, that catches Kenma’s attention, and he’s graced with the small twitch of a smile. Smiles were a rare sight in the time he’s known this boy, and Tetsurou absolutely does not fucking find it cute every time. (It’s a little cute. Maybe a lot cute. Fuck.)

When Tetsurou’s done eating, he licks his lips, and he looks up in time to see Kenma slurp at the last of his miso soup. The witch puts the trash away and taps at the blueprint before him.

He turns to Tetsurou then. “Ok,” he says. “This is going to work.”

Tetsurou does not feel confident about this.

Kenma grabs his bag and picks up Tetsurou’s cage. Tetsurou is brought to front of the store where the space is clearest and set on the ground. And then Kenma pulls out a knife from his bag.

Tesuro retreats as far away from Kenma and the knife as he can get in the cage, and Kenma holds out a hand as if to soothe him. “Ps ps. This won’t hurt at all,” he says.

The knife in his hand seems to contradict that statement though.

But instead of advancing on Tetsurou, Kenma slashes deep into his hand with a soft hiss of pain. He makes a fist and allows the blood to drip to the ground. Then he crouches down and starts to draw, using the blood like ink to sketch what looks like truly advanced magic.

Tetsurou knows he shouldn’t be impressed, but he can’t help but try to follow and translate the formulas made up of familiar and foreign runes. It becomes less impressive once he feels the level of dark energy rising, that sticky, cloying, rotten feeling of it overtaking his senses.

He knows he’s started screeching when Kenma glances at him, but the witch just mutters, “Almost done. Almost done. It’s ok.” 

And finally, Kenma rears his bloody hand back and slams it down into the center of the complicated web of runes.

There’s a bright yellow flash.

Tetsurou feels a heavy tug, like the back of his brain is being pulled away, and it fucking hurts. It soon transforms into a sharp, almost overwhelming grip of searing pain.

Tetsurou mindlessly starts to call up his own power, desperate to do anything to stop this feeling.

And then it’s like something heavy thunks into the back of his head, invading his mind. He doesn’t realize he’s starting to shift until his screams start to sound more human, and he can see Kenma staring at him in horror.

Kuroo realizes his next problem a moment later as his body grows and presses against the hot confines of the containment spell of his cage. He feels a flash of panic that this is how he’s going to die - sliced into slivers of blood and viscera between the tines of a cage. _Fuck, how fucking embarassing._

But then Kenma runs over and makes a slashing, criss-crossing motion with his arms.

Tetsurou tumbles free as the containment spell cracks, the bars of the cage coming undone from the top like the petals of a flower blossoming open. He feels a light constriction around his neck, and then all of a sudden, the pain is gone. 

He’s on all fours, panting, as he tries to regain his composure. When he finally has a hold of himself, he pushes on his hands so he can land on his ass and lean back on his arms.

Above him, blocking the overhead light, Kenma stares down at him with wide eyes.

Tetsurou hears clearly then, in his goddamn mind, as clearly as if the words had been spoken out loud, _What the fuck? What the actual fuck! What the fuck did you do?!_

“What did _I_ do? Excuse me? You’re the one who just cast a dark energy binding spell on me, you naughty little witch!” Tetsurou says out loud. He stretches his arms up. Goddamn, he’d been shifted for the better part of the day - much longer than he’s used to.

____It’s then that he realizes his neck is itchy. He brings his hands to his neck and feels a strange material beneath his fingertips. It’s not tight, but fitted to his skin. “Is this - is this what I think it is, motherfucker?” he says._ _ _ _

____Kenma takes one look at the collar around Tetsurou’s throat and bolts._ _ _ _

Tetsurou is busy trying to grip it and channeling power in an attempt to burn it off, cut it off - anything. But it’s like it’s fused to his skin. Every time he tries to pull from his pool of energy, he feels a strange, itching need to shift back into his cat form and hears a faint whisper in his mind that sounds like, if he’s not mistaken, like a mantra of _fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck._

He hears a door slam at the back of the store and jumps up. He takes off at a run, worried that Kenma has left him in the dust without answers and with a bond collar around his _goddamn neck._

____Instead, he finds that, behind a shelf that has been shoved along the back wall, there’s a door. The Nekoma hunters always joke that Tetsurou has the shifter form of a cat for a reason - his self-destructive inability to ignore the need to satisfy his own curiosity._ _ _ _

____He hesitantly opens the door and peers behind it. It leads to a large, bare room with another door to the right. The secret room alone is interesting enough to pique his interest, but it’s the floor-to-ceiling swath of runes and sigils on every inch of wall space that really catches his attention. Even without augmenting his vision with light energy, he can see them glittering with power. He has no idea how no hunter has sensed its presence before, let alone him or Bokuto._ _ _ _

____Carefully, he steps in. Though the room is steeped in power, it’s not dark energy he feels, but grounding natural magic. He’s not sure he’s felt this much at once before, even in his shifter form, which is based in organic power like any naturally occurring animal in this realm._ _ _ _

____He heads to the other door, swallowing back a sense of disgust - and resignation. Strangely, those emotions don’t feel like his own. Instead they seem to stem from the hint of another presence that rests comfortably against his own mind. He absently touches the collar on his neck._ _ _ _

____When he opens the door, he sees Kenma on his knees and in the middle of vomiting into the toilet._ _ _ _

____Tetsurou leans against the doorway and waits. He feels no hint of malicious intent through what he believes to be the dark energy bond Kenma created between them._ _ _ _

____Finally, when he seems to have emptied his stomach, Kenma reaches forward to flush before twisting to look up at Tetsurou over his shoulder. “You can’t hurt me,” he says, using toilet paper to scrub over his mouth._ _ _ _

The hunter glares, still distantly fighting against the urge to shift back into his cat form. “You don’t seem so sure of that, _witch.”_

Tetsurou suddenly feels a grip through their bond, and it _nudges_ him in his mind. He hunches over before there’s a flash of red light, and suddenly he’s a cat again. He hisses and then draws on his power, shifting back with a ‘pop.’ “Fuck you.”

“Fuck _you_.”

____Sighing, Tetsurou puts his hands on his hips as he looks down at where Kenma is scooting away from the toilet - and farther away from Tetsurou - to lean against the wall. He’s staring impassively up at Tetsurou like this is all commonplace._ _ _ _

____“Look, this is just a misunderstanding. As you can see, I’m not a cat. I’m a man,” he says. He gestures up and down his body with one hand. “So undo the spell, and we’ll call it a day.”_ _ _ _

____“And why do you think I should unbind you?”_ _ _ _

Tetsurou grins his most charming smile and cocks his head to the side. “Because I’m a man - keyword here being _man_ \- of my word. And I’m telling you I’ll walk away. Does this look like a face that would lie to you?”

____“Yes.”_ _ _ _

____“Hey!”_ _ _ _

____“It does. You look like a liar.”_ _ _ _

____Mildly affronted, and perhaps a little amused, Tetsurou says, “I’m a gentleman!” He’s never heard this many words come out of this boy’s mouth in the time he’s known him, and it’s honestly a fucking treat._ _ _ _

____“Your hair is suspicious.”_ _ _ _

____It’s now feeling less like a treat, actually. “I’ll have you know that people find me irresistibly attractive!”_ _ _ _

____“Who?”_ _ _ _

____“Ok. Oh my god,” Tetsurou says, throwing his hands up. “I don’t have to take this! You’re just a baby witch playing with magic you don’t understand.”_ _ _ _

____At that, Kenma pushes up to a stand. Tetsurou is surprised that he’s almost a foot taller than Kenma._ _ _ _

____“I understand more than you know. And I think you’re the one out of his depth.”_ _ _ _

____“So the little witch bites,” Tetsurou says with a smirk._ _ _ _

____Kenma is unmoved._ _ _ _

“Seriously. You can trust me. _I like you._ We’re basically old friends, aren’t we? I mean, we have a meeting spot and everything. You feed me my favorite fish. Now just undo the spell, and we’ll go our separate ways.” He pauses. “I mean, I wouldn’t say no to more fish if you have it. I’m fucking starving. But - “

_____“No.” Kenma says, sounding suddenly resolute. “I need a familiar, and you’re apparently the one I’m stuck with. I’m not making new spells. I used up enough energy already.”_ _ _ _ _

_____“That’s - “ Tetsurou groans, scrubbing his hands over his face in frustration._ _ _ _ _

Kenma remains unaffected. Yet there it is again, on the outskirts of Tetsurou’s own awareness of self is that sense of _other_ in his head. And it’s broadcasting the unequivocal feelings of fear, resignation, and unease.

“Look, Kenma, you and I both know that a bonding spell like this - and maybe especially because it’s crafted from fucking _dark energy_ \- can’t be undone by anyone but the caster. That’s you. So _you_ have to undo it.”

_____Still, Kenma says nothing, and the feelings traversing through the bond seem to double in intensity at his words._ _ _ _ _

_____“Ok. Ok,” Tetsurou says, trying to calm the witch before him. “What exactly is your issue with me? Because it’s not just that you don’t want to undo the spell, or make new ones or whatever. It’s me specifically, isn’t it?”_ _ _ _ _

_____Kenma’s eyes slide sideways as if to avoid the question._ _ _ _ _

_____“If for some reason you had caught anyone else - shapeshifter or no - I have the feeling you’d undo the spell, wipe them, and let them be on their merry way. But not me. Why?”_ _ _ _ _

_____When Kenma looks at him again, he nods at the Nekoma guild insignia patched on the breast of Tetsurou’s duster coat. “You’re a witch hunter,” he says simply._ _ _ _ _

_____“Bro, I’ve never even met a witch before you.”_ _ _ _ _

_____“That’s because your kind killed them all.”_ _ _ _ _

_____Tetsurou feels a spike of anger suddenly race through their bond - but it’s not his own anger, it’s coming from Kenma. He then feels the reluctance behind that feeling and the attempt to reign it in. That’s when Tetsurou feels the hint of a nudge again, and he throws his hands up before he’s forced to shift again._ _ _ _ _

“Wait wait wait! Just _wait!”_

_____Kenma stands stock still, but he has dropped his gaze. Through the bond, Kuroo tries to ignore what he suddenly realizes must be a non-stop feeling of fear and dread. It’s the one feeling projected at him that has not diminished in the least since their bond was established. Tetsurou isn’t sure how he feels about the fact that this familiar boy constantly feels this way, despite the fact that he’s the very reason Tetsurou is stuck in this mess._ _ _ _ _

“Look, I don’t know what your damage is, but this - this is _crazy._ You realize that right? That you can’t keep me here? You know I’m a shadow hunter, you recognize my guild insignia. My team will come looking for me, and it won’t end well for you if this is what they find.” He gestures at his collar.

_____“Then I just have to make sure they don’t find you.”_ _ _ _ _

_____Tetsurou feels the sharp rush of his own fear._ _ _ _ _

_____Immediately after, he sees Kenma flinch and take a step back. He wonders then how much of his own emotions he’s transmitting right now, but he has no clue how to control it._ _ _ _ _

_____Kenma’s hand rises to adjust his scarf, and Tetsurou thinks of the black marks he’d seen on the boy’s neck earlier, his own fear bleeding away. All of a sudden, the situation feels less like entrapment than an instance of “they’re more afraid of you than you are of them.”_ _ _ _ _

_____The realization hits Tetsurou all at once. “You don’t know how to undo the spell, do you?”_ _ _ _ _

_____Kenma looks at him through a curtain of blonde hair, a hint of annoyance creeping across his face. “Yes I do.”_ _ _ _ _

_____“You really don't. I can tell.” Tetsurou taps his temple._ _ _ _ _

_____“I do.”_ _ _ _ _

_____They stare evenly at one another for a moment. Tetsurou folds his arms across his chest. “You don’t.”_ _ _ _ _

_____“I - “_ _ _ _ _

_____“Ok, ok. Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. Regardless, it’s impressive spell work, little witch! But I’m pretty positive at this point that you didn’t mean to catch me. Human man. Light guild member. Shadow hunter. Fucking ace spellcaster.”_ _ _ _ _

_____The way the witch’s eyes keep returning to the guild patch on Kuroo’s duster is confirmation alone even as he shakes his head to deny it._ _ _ _ _

_____Softer now, Tetsurou says, “I won’t hurt you, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”_ _ _ _ _

_____“I’m not afraid - “_ _ _ _ _

_____“I can feel it through the bond. But I won’t. Hurt you, that is. I won’t let my guild hurt you either. This - this is just a big misunderstanding. You just wanted a familiar. And when you were talking to your shopkeeper friend, it’s clear that you’re not, like, messing with the shadow realm or planning to hurt anyone.”_ _ _ _ _

_____Kenma neither confirms nor denies his words, but the feeling of distress that had been coming down the bond lessens slightly._ _ _ _ _

_____Tetsurou goes on, heartened by the shift. “We - I - shadow hunters don’t hunt people. We hunt shadows. We hunt what goes bump in the night. The things that harm others.”_ _ _ _ _

_____“Then where are all the witches?”_ _ _ _ _

_____“They,” Kuroo pauses. “They disappeared.”_ _ _ _ _

_”Lie.”_

_____Kuroo shakes his head, bewildered at the anger moving through the bond again. He says, “Some were hunted, sure. You must know the story. A couple decades ago, witches were killing people. The world was fucking burning with shadows. They had to be stopped. That’s the only time in history the light guilds ever hunted anyone. The ones who hurt and killed people.”_ _ _ _ _

“ _Hunters_ hurt and kill people.”

_____Kuroo stares at the little witch, shaking his head slowly, confused by the animosity and mistrust. People love light energy wielders. To the general magical community, they’re like minor celebrities for the realm-protecting work they do. Without them, creatures and demons from the shadow realm would be running rampant again, and no one wanted that._ _ _ _ _

“That’s not what we do,” he says quietly after a moment. “Maybe - maybe that’s how it was back then, I don’t know, but today our credence is to do no harm but to the shadows that invade our world. We’re trained to _protect_ people. That’s it. You - what you’re doing right now is - _you can’t do this._ Kenma, you get that you have to let me go, right? You let me go, and I promise I won’t hurt you.”

“You’ll kill me, or you’ll lead your witch hunters right to u - to - to _me_ the moment I undo the spell.”

_____Kuroo shakes his head, ears catching on the slip. He hadn’t known that Akaashi was part of the magical community. But he sees now that he and Kenma come as a pair. That they’re in hiding. That they are constantly afraid. “You meant to catch a cat, right? Then how about this. Let me go, and this is over. If you want, I'll even help you find another familiar. I mentioned I’m specialized in spellcasting, right?”_ _ _ _ _

_____The witch glances up, face twisting with skepticism and that horrible look of fear shining in his eyes that makes Kuroo’s gut clench. He’s having a hard time reconciling the sweet, soft-spoken boy he met up with every few weeks by the game store - who held Tetsurou in his sweaters while he napped - with this shivering, frightened witch in front of him who’s tainted in shadow marks and holds the reins to his freedom._ _ _ _ _

_____“You know what I am now,” Kenma says, his voice so quiet it’s nearly a whisper. Tetsurou watches the way his hands twist in his sweater, takes in the hunch in his shoulders. Guilt thrums through their bond, and it’s not coming from Tetsurou._ _ _ _ _

_____When Tetsurou speaks next, his voice comes out gentler than before. “You have a choice here, Kenma. You don’t have to be afraid of me. You don’t seem like the type of person who wants to hurt anyone. Let me go. It’ll be ok.”_ _ _ _ _

“I don’t _trust you!_ ” Kenma exclaims, voice shaking as if he’s unused to speaking that loudly.

_____Tetsurou breathes out a sigh. This boy is at the end of some sort of rope and seems to be unable see a light at the end of whatever tunnel he’s trapped in. Tetsurou can’t resist the urge to help him. It’s kind of in his job description anyway. “Then how can I earn your trust?” he asks._ _ _ _ _

_____Kenma’s face is hidden again, chin in his scarf, hair blocking his face. “You can’t. No one can.”_ _ _ _ _

_____Kuroo catches that hint of resignation through their bond again, entwined with a tinge of hopelessness, a heaping of sadness even - and that sour flavor of constant fear._ _ _ _ _

_____Then there’s that now-telltale nudge in his mind, and before he knows it, Tetsurou is on all fours on the tiled bathroom floor as a cat once again._ _ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I’ve never written so fast. But your feedback is giving me life, and so are these characters. It’s almost writing itself. Or maybe it’s just that it’s fully outlined, and that’s actually working for me this time around. 
> 
> Happy witchy season, everyone!
> 
>  **Next time:**  
>  [Edit] Kuroo is missing. Bokuto is dejected. Akaashi is charmed. It ends better than you might think (for now).


	4. a sad soul is always up at midnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kuroo is missing. Bokuto is dejected. Akaashi is charmed. It ends better than you might think (for now).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry, but the cat is (still) not yet out of the bag, because time is, apparently, moving at a snail’s pace in this universe. But it’s all going down next time, I swear. FYI, this chapter is super heavy on the bokuaka. I think I got separation anxiety after leaving them out in the last one, so here we are. 
> 
> **Warning:** Here be smut. And a good helping of angst. And quite a bit of flowery, flowery fluff to start, but it rolled off the fingertips, so to speak, when I was being an insomniac at 4:30 a.m., and I am letting this darling live.
> 
> If you want to skip the smut, after Bokuto’s POV ends with the first “///”, go to the very end of Akaashi’s POV by searching for, “Keiji slowly sits up”. You can pick up from there. It’s just a few more sentences to lead into the next chapter. The smut section is a long scene, guys. Like half of the chapter. Lol

Koutarou finally collapses onto his back on the practice mat. It’s pretty late by now, but it must be a hunter thing to try to overcome sleepless nights with more training because both Yaku and Lev from Nekoma were already sparring when Koutarou had wandered in. 

Now, after a few rounds with each of them, focused on spellcasting and straight combat, respectively, Koutarou is drenched in sweat and breathing heavily. But he feels great. His muscles are sore and his energy level has evened out. Sometimes when he hasn’t had a solid case or exercised his power, his fingertips start to itch with the need to let loose. 

On his left, Lev is groaning loudly.

“You big baby,” Yaku says, walking up to them. “He didn’t hit you _that_ hard.”

Koutarou almost gets whiplash when he turns to look at Lev in concern. “You hurt, bro?” he asks worriedly. 

The rookie hunter sits up quickly from where he was sprawled, his long limbs stretching like vines across the mat. He waves his hands quickly in front of him to dispel the concern. “I’m all right, Bokuto-san! But I’ll win next time!” He then turns to scowl up at Yaku. “How about you take one of those ‘one-shot’ blows, huh, senpai?”

Yaku takes a slight step back at that. “I’m a spellcaster. If you want to be an ace like Bokuto, you still have a long way to go.” 

Koutarou laughs, pushing up to his elbows and puffing out his chest. But he feels magnanimous in this moment. “Your last block was pretty good, Lev-kun.” 

“Don’t flatter him, Bokuto-san,” Yaku says. Turning back to Lev, he points at him. “Besides, I wasn’t the one who volunteered to take him on like an idiot.” 

Yaku’s phone suddenly rings, and he holds a finger up at Lev before he can retort. “What’s up, Kai?” He steps off to the side.

“Hey, Bokuto-san. Were you holding back?” 

Koutarou tilts his head to the side, looking back at where Lev is massaging his hands. Lev’s practice sword - splintered into two even pieces - rests sadly on the mat beside him. “Holding back?”

“Yeah,” Lev says easily. “Your beam weapon shot. The one that killed the hellhound yesterday. The one that almost killed me just now.” 

Koutarou is surprised into a laugh. _“‘Beam weapon!’”_

“That’s what Kuroo called it!”

“Oh my god. I’m fucking _amazing,”_ Koutarou replies joyfully, prompting a mirroring grin from Lev. “Wait ‘til I tell Yamiji!” 

“Hey, Bokuto-san,” Yaku calls over, interrupting their important conversation. “Have you heard from Kuroo?” 

Koutarou tilts his head back until he sees Yaku upside down. “No? Not since last night. Why? What’d he do now?” he asks with a grin.

Yaku just frowns and speaks quietly into his phone. Lev looks between Yaku and Bokuto, straightening out his shoulders as if feeling the rising tension in the room.

Koutarou pushes up to a seat and looks at Yaku properly. “What is it?”

Yaku ends the call and looks down at the mat before glancing back up at Bokuto. “Apparently he didn’t check in after his patrol today. He should’ve been done by the early evening, and - and maybe he’s an asshole most of the time, but he’s prompt about check-in. We all are.” He pauses. “Nekomata and Kai haven’t heard from him since early this morning when he reported in on your case.” Yaku stares at Bokuto like he’s choosing his words carefully. “At the end of his shift today, his objective was to look for signs of that suspected witch.”

Koutarou feels suddenly cold all over. 

“Kai’s organizing a search party for Nekoma,” Yaku says. “But - well, he figured you’d want to know too. Nekomata’s sending word to the other guilds to be sharp.”

Koutarou stands slowly. He feels the heavy weight of Yaku and Lev’s attention and offers Lev a hand up without looking at him. “I’m gonna shower, and then I’m going on patrol,” he says evenly. 

“Isn’t today your day off?” Lev asks hesitantly, taking the hand up. 

Koutarou just leaves them with a nod. 

Hours later, Koutarou’s pace has slowed to a dejected amble. He turned his phone to silent a while ago after Yamiji sent him message after message and then voicemail after voicemail. The guild leader had even drafted Konoha to text and call, but Koutarou just can’t deal with them - anyone - right now. 

Kuroo is his oldest friend after Yamiji. Though Yamiji has always been more of a father figure and mentor than a friend. 

When Koutarou’s parents had been killed, Kuroo was there at the guild base to visit him every day, even when Koutarou’s depressive state had lasted for weeks at a time back then, sometimes even months. Kuroo has always been there - a solid and safe sarcastic little shit - since as far back as he can remember. 

And now he’s missing. 

Koutarou has looked everywhere he can think of, has run himself near dry energy-wise, despite how much power he has, in casting spell after spell to catch even a glimpse of a clue about where Kuroo is, if he’s safe, if he’s even -

He cuts off that train of thought with a hard stop. 

He has no fucking no clue where to look or what to do next, and he’s almost sick with helplessness. The only lead they have on the witch is that they have a green magical signature and the location of one measly shadow hit. But anything could have happened. And Koutarou, Fukurodani ace, fourth-best hunter among the light guilds, ‘beam weapon’ Bokuto is a fucking useless piece of shit. 

“Bokuto-san?”

Koutarou snaps his head up at the call of his name. He looks around in confusion, noting absently that he’s wandered to a neighborhood near the downtown strip. 

Then there, across the street, he spots Akaashi. The shopkeeper looks almost ethereal beneath the streetlight, limned faintly in gold. 

He watches as Akaashi looks both ways, though it’s late in the night now and the roads are empty, before he jogs across the street. Koutarou feels a twinge of affection despite his heavy mood and sudden self-consciousness, because Akaashi hasn't seen him like this - not since that first time they met.

Koutarou had been in a dejected mood after learning about the guild hunter rankings this year. He’d missed the top three by one slot, and Yamiji had said it was mostly due to his emotional instability. 

Of course, Koutarou had gone and proved them all right by falling into a depressed state about it. It had lasted for quite a while that time - so long that Kuroo had decided to camp out on Koutarou’s couch for a few days. Even Koutarou’s hair had felt his despondency, falling flat and refusing to stay up no matter how much gel Koutarou had worked into it. That only fueled the darkness of his mood. 

But then he met Akaashi. 

He’s not sure what it was, why he’d imprinted like a baby duckling on the shopkeeper. But he had. He’d been struck stupid, and it had been all he could do to contain the sudden, inexplicable feeling that things had just gotten better now that Akaashi was there. Maybe it was in the amount of patience Koutarou had experienced firsthand that day; or the quiet, wry humor he witnessed; or maybe it was just as cliched as love at first sight. Whatever it was, it stuck with him, became compounded, more intense, and eventually undeniable with each visit he made to the shop.

When Akaashi makes it across the street, he looks almost as worn as Koutarou feels. His sleeves are pulled low over his knuckles like always, but it’s in the way he stands, in his posture, in the clench of his jaw that shows a heaviness Koutarou isn’t used to seeing in him. He notices too that Akaashi’s hair is glittering from the heavy dew in the air, like he’d been wandering around for a while now. 

Koutarou cocks his head to the side. “What are you doing out here, Akaashi?” 

He knows his voice is softer than normal. Despite what people may think, Koutarou does have a sense of awareness about when he’s being too much for them. It’s just that sometimes he can’t seem to contain himself rather than that he doesn’t realize how rambunctious he’s being.

But it’s so late now, and so, so quiet. It’s the kind of hour when Koutarou sometimes goes for a jog after he’s already gone to the light guild practice gym and still can’t come down enough to fall asleep. It’s nights like these when he needs some rare time for himself to just move his body, to not think about anything or anyone or how things just don’t seem to be as simple as they used to be. 

“I’m - “ Akaashi starts, but he pauses when he finally looks up to meet Koutarou’s eyes. His gaze is distant, concerned even, and Koutarou feels worry creep up his spine. 

“You all right?” Koutarou coaxes further. “What’s wrong?” 

Akaashi shakes his head. “No - I mean, yes. I’m fine. Thank you.” He breathes out a slow sigh. “Just - everything seems to be changing, you know? And I - don’t know that I’m ready to change with it.”

Koutarou feels a prickle behind his eyes at the words as he stares down at this beautiful man who somehow can voice something so simply that’s been haunting his own mind for a while now. 

He just nods slowly in understanding as he watches Akaashi carefully. 

Akaashi’s face is often so calm that Koutarou imagines a lot of people mistake it as apathetic, but they’re really missing out if they do. It’s in Akaashi’s eyes where he’s least reserved, Koutarou thinks. When he’s happy or finds something funny in something Koutarou has said or done, they crinkle up at the edges and almost seem to shine. When the shop’s particularly busy and he has a lot to do, his eyes tend to dart in multiple directions, cataloguing every little thing quickly and efficiently as he determines how to proceed. Koutarou offers his help then, and typically not before, because it’s clear as day how much Akaashi enjoys his work. Koutarou knows firsthand the love of a profession, and he’d never try to encroach on that for anyone. 

Now, though his expression is as even and impassive as usual, Akaashi is looking up at him like he’s trying to figure out a puzzle, or an answer to an unspoken question.

Koutarou suddenly pats down his duster coat. “Ah - I’m glad I ran into you, actually. If you’re gonna be walking around so late, Akaashi, I have something for you.” 

He digs into his breast pocket and finds himself able to slant a crooked grin at the mild curiosity that blooms on Akaashi’s face. 

He surfaces with the charm. It’s a gold oval, roughly the size of a penny, with a simple protective rune etched deep into the metal and surrounded by stars. If inspected closely, the lines are rubbed smooth from a persistent touch. It’s one of the only things he has from his childhood from before his parents were killed. 

Kuroo had been skeptical about the fact that Koutarou had planned to give something so precious away, but it was just another one of those things that Koutarou couldn’t explain. There was something about Akaashi, from the moment he’d met him, that presented in him a need to give and to protect that felt entirely different from how he approached his job as a hunter. 

Koutarou lets the charm drop so he can hold it by the chain. “This - uh - this is for you. It’s for - good luck, I guess.” 

He really should have planned out how to explain what it is since Akaashi isn’t part of his world and won’t understand the significance of receiving a protective charm. 

Yet Akaashi accepts it almost reverently with a cupped hand. His thumb brushes over the rune on the face, and his breath stutters quietly on his next inhale. 

Akaashi just stands there, his head bowed over the charm in his palm, so close and so still, and Koutarou is left a mess of emotions in the silence. 

He’s standing invariably at the precipice of elation and devastation, suddenly so aware of his own tenuous grasp of control and struck by the uncomfortable realization that this man, this beautiful man before him, has the power to tip him - easily, so easily - from one into the other. 

When Akaashi next looks up, Koutarou is jarred by the faint glimmer in his eyes in the lamplight. It is a stark and strangely naked thing, like something in him has been ripped open. There, Koutarou sees echoes of all the feelings roiling around in his own chest in that deep swirl of blue-green. It’s raw in a way that he’s never seen in Akaashi before, perhaps had never been privy to until just this very moment, seemingly held at a distance of politeness and uncertainty that now, just now, has cracked open like a nut under pressure. 

Kuroo is missing. There’s a witch in the world. Yamiji is afraid. Everything is changing, and Koutarou is not sure if he’s ready to change with it.

Yet among everything, he feels most powerless in that still moment just looking into Akaashi’s eyes and straight into the pool of utter vulnerability that so much mirrors his own it nearly brings him to his knees. 

He leans his head forward barely an inch - a slow, thoughtless, irresistible movement. He is hesitant to break the fragile hush that hangs in the air between them. 

But then Akaashi’s eyes slip closed, lashes fluttering to stillness on his cheeks as he tilts his face up, lips traveling the great expanse of that last inch to press lightly, so lightly, against Koutarou’s. In turn, Koutarou lets his eyes fall closed at the very last second before they touch. 

It’s warm then, so warm despite the deep cold in his bones from his worry and his fear and his helplessness. His ears ring in the midst of the silence that wraps around them like a bubble of protection but for the crickets chirping in the distance, the swish of cars speeding by on damp asphalt blocks away. 

He catches the faint scent of eucalyptus and lavender as he applies the gentlest pressure back into the kiss, a part of him still afraid of spooking Akaashi away. 

Instead, he feels the grace of fingertips brushing encouragingly along the light stubble of his jaw. The next thing he knows, he’s wound an arm around Akaashi’s waist and a hand into that shiny, curly black hair, marveling at how soft it feels against his palm, his fingers. The movement elicits a faint, helpless sound from Akaashi that makes Koutarou brave enough to lick at the seam of his lips. They part for him without a hint of hesitance, and it’s more than warm there, so much so that Koutarou finds that he loses himself in it easily, so easily. 

He registers Akaashi’s arms winding around his neck and pulls him closer still until their chests are flush together. Their breath is a mist in the air between them then, the only barrier that Koutarou feels as he kisses Akaashi again, again, tightening his hand in that soft, soft hair.

This time, the sound Akaashi makes is closer to a moan, and Koutarou pulls back all at once, breathing hard, worried with a sudden sense of clarity that if he doesn’t do so now, he might not be able to in the next moment, and he needs to make sure Akaashi is there with him. 

Akaashi blinks slowly, looking up at him through his eyelashes as he leans back against Koutarou’s arm supporting his back. 

“Akaashi,” Koutarou says, voice coming out deep and rough, his torrent of emotion near overwhelming and now filling him to the brim with a last rush of hope - all of it winding throughout his body and threatening to choke him from the inside. “I - are you - “

“Take me home, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi interrupts softly. He tilts forward on his toes and presses lightly parted lips against Koutarou’s once, twice - and it’s warm, so fucking warm - before stepping back out of his hold. Akaashi’s hand is still fisted around Koutarou’s mother’s charm, and he slips his other hand into Koutarou’s open palm. 

Koutarou swallows, the volume of it at odds with the loud thump of his heart against his chest. He is helpless for this man, this beautiful man, and he tips head-first, inevitably, into elation. 

///

Keiji sees little of Bokuto’s apartment. They never take the time to switch on the lights. Instead, it’s a slow progression from the entryway, where Keiji is pressed against the inside of the door, Bokuto’s hands winding in his hair as he deepens their kiss. 

Keiji is glad for the support behind him that steadies his knees and keeps him on his feet. Like his personality, Bokuto’s kisses are an undeniable force. Warm and sweet and overwhelming. Bokuto’s lips slide wet and firm against his, tongue licking into his mouth gently like there’s still a question between them. 

It’s one Keiji is happy to answer. 

He presses his hands against Bokuto’s broad chest, muscles firm beneath his touch, and uses his fingertips to find and begin to unbutton his shirt. Bokuto makes a low sound in the back of his throat that has Keiji sighing into their kiss, expectant, excited for what comes next. He helps Bokuto shrug his shirt and coat off without breaking from their kiss, and the next instant he’s pressed harder against the door. Bokuto’s hips are flush against his own, and Keiji can't help the moan that escapes him at the hard line of heat he feels against his hip, evidence of another question answered.

Keiji grinds back, running his hands along the muscled lines of Bokuto’s arms, his shoulders. His mind starts to go hazy as he feels blood pool in his dick when Bokuto nudges his legs apart to press a strong thigh between his, giving him sweet friction. 

Bokuto slides a huge, hot hand from beneath Keiji’s sweater, where it was like a brand on his waist, down to his thigh, pulling it up so it’s hooked above his hip. He does the same to the other, easily gripping beneath Keiji’s ass to lift him. 

It’s all Keiji can do but to grind his hips helplessly then, sandwiched between the door and Bokuto’s solid figure that positively radiates heat. The pressure against his dick would be enough, but the way Bokuto’s chest heaves against his, the clean, masculine scent of him like he’s recently showered permeating his nose, and the way his hands are grasping at him make Keiji suddenly desperate. 

“Bokuto-san,” he says, breaking their kiss. 

But Bokuto chases his mouth, grinding firmly against him again, squeezing his ass, and Keiji cuts off his words in favor of a loud groan. He breaks the kiss again, this time to arch his back into the grind and knock his head back against the door in pleasure. Bokuto directs his attention to his neck, sucking a hot trail of kisses behind one ear down toward the well of his collar bone. 

He tries again. “Bokuto-san. _Bedroom.”_

Bokuto pulls back briefly to grin at him, a flash of white teeth in the faint white city light seeping in through the cracked blinds of the windows. Then he grips harder beneath Keiji’s ass, taking on his full weight and carrying him through the apartment. Keiji takes his turn to press open-mouthed kisses against Bokuto’s neck. His entire body is lighting up with the heat of anticipation as he tastes salt beneath his tongue and feels the rumble from the low sounds Bokuto makes that are starting to drive him wild. 

Slowly, gently, Bokuto lays him out on the bed, unwrapping the arms from around his neck to press Keiji’s wrists into the mattress. Keiji moans in appreciation at the pressure and attempts to pull him closer with his legs, making Bokuto chuckle. It’s a deep, soft sound, affectionate and heated all at once. 

“Impatient,” Bokuto says softly, the smile clear in his voice.

Keiji tests the grip on his wrists, but Bokuto’s hold is firm. Bokuto adjusts then so one large hand holds Keiji’s wrists together above his head. With the other, he lifts the hem of Keiji’s sweater up to his chest. He settles himself between Keiji’s spread legs, slithering down to press kisses to his abdomen, teeth lightly grazing the skin there in a way that makes him writhe in pleasure and want. 

“Keiji,” he says, and Keiji bucks his hips at the intimacy of it with another moan. Bokuto cuts a pleased smile up at him before coming up on one knee to create space between them and using his other hand to undo Keiji’s belt. 

Keiji is sweating. 

Bokuto had always seemed like he’d be an attentive lover. Hints of it are in every small thing he does. In the way he watches Keiji so closely to gauge his reactions before saying or doing anything. In the brief, respectful touches on Keiji’s shoulders or back when helping out in the store, to call for his attention, or to just be there to steady him. He is so gentle despite his size and clear strength, so cognizant of Keiji’s comfort level. 

Yet now Keiji is realizing that that doesn’t necessarily apply to the bedroom. Bokuto is still respectful, gentle to a degree, incredibly perceptive about Keiji’s wants and needs in the moment. 

But there’s an undeniable confidence in him here in the dark. 

He has Keiji’s jeans shoved down around his thighs, and his reach is broad enough that he still has Keiji’s wrists in one hand. His other hand presses teasingly against Keiji’s dick over his briefs, but his gaze is transfixed on his face. 

Keiji has always felt confident in bed himself. It was the one part about his past relationships that had felt comfortable. The emotional part was always a mystery, but this - this had been simpler, intuitive. 

But now, watching Bokuto’s golden eyes gleam in the dark, as he’s held by his wrists and quite literally his dick, he is helpless and mindless with desire in a way he’s never felt before. 

“Bokuto-san,” he whispers, breathing embarrassingly fast already. “Please.” 

Bokuto slides his hand beneath Keiji’s briefs to get a hold of his length. He uses the pre-cum from the head to ease his grip down the shaft and begins to pump him slowly. “Call me by my name, Keiji?”

His grip tightens lightly as he jerks him, and Keiji cries out at the abrupt change of pace, shutting his eyes at the pleasure of it. “Yes! I - ,” he tries to find his composure, but it’s fled from him. “Bokuto-san!”

“No.” Bokuto stills his hand, and Keiji bucks his hips to chase the friction. 

Keiji blinks his eyes open in confusion and sees Bokuto just watching him, a lazy smile across his face like he has all the time in the world. Except for the way his own chest heaves with heavy breaths, he seems almost unbothered despite the tent in his pants and Keiji’s near nakedness before him. 

Keiji is not used to this. 

Bokuto is usually a fluttering, energetic storm of a man. This - this is something else entirely. 

“Fuck,” he whispers. 

Bokuto’s grin widens. “Say it for me? Please?”

Keiji swallows. “Koutarou,” he whispers, shivering suddenly. “Koutarou, _please.”_

That grin tightens into something a little more vicious. Bokuto leans forward to kiss him again, slow and tantalizing in a way that has Keiji squirming in his grip, but his dick is jerked again, tight and hot and so fucking good. The callouses on Bokuto’s fingertips and his palms just add to the friction, and the pressure builds and builds until Keiji can do nothing but moan through it.

“You’re so amazing, Keiji,” Bokuto tells him between kisses. “I like you so much. Ever since I first saw you. Fuck. You’re so _fucking hot,_ Keji.”

Bokuto pulls away all at once and makes quick work of his own trousers, then his briefs and shoes. Keiji follows suit, shoving off the rest of his clothes. He spares a moment to hold onto the hem of his sweater, but it’s dark enough in the room that he’s not worried about the marks on his wrists being visible. He pulls it off with the rest. The protective charm is the only thing he leaves on, relishing the warmth of it against his skin. 

It seems to catch Bokuto’s eye, and it spurs him back into action. One large hand presses Keiji back as he settles between his legs. It’s different now, headier than before as their naked skin slides together. Keiji runs his hands over as much as he can reach, marveling at the strength he feels, tightly coiled like Bokuto is holding back. Keiji is determined to make him come apart in any way he can. 

Bokuto’s hands move to his hips as he kisses down Keiji’s torso. He takes a moment to suck and teethe at one nipple, then the other, eliciting moans from Keiji’s lips. 

“Next time,” he says, his words murmured into the flesh of Keiji’s belly, “next time I’m gonna take you apart so slowly, baby. Go over every fucking inch of you.” And then he’s hovering over Keiji’s dick, which is resting hard and heavy and trailing precum on his pelvis. Bokuto looks up through his lashes, hands squeezing at Keiji’s lean hips. He kisses at the points of his hip bones and asks, “Can I?”

“Yes. Fuck,” Keiji says, nodding quickly, so turned on right now that it hurts. He hadn’t ever even thought to presume that Bokuto would be like this, would talk like this, would go down on him like this. 

Bokuto flashes a last grin up at him and then takes him in slowly. He uses his lips first to mouth around the head and then his tongue to lick up the precum gathering there. And then he sucks him down, tracing his tongue along the vein. After that, Keiji is so overcome by the tight, soft heat and suction that it makes his legs tremble.

He is positively undone, gasping, gripping his own hair with one hand, and trying not to buck into Bokuto’s mouth even as the man continues to suck him down so, so deep. He’s not sure he’d be able to control himself without Bokuto’s steadying hands on his hips. Keiji reaches his other hand down to rest in that spiky nest of gelled hair and feels his balls tighten at the groan Bokuto hums against his dick. 

Bokuto’s hands trail down from his hips to lift slightly under his thighs, and Keiji is such a helpless mess that he just presses his feet down to support his now bent knees. When the man pulls off him, Keiji makes a whine of protest and pulls lightly against Bokuto’s hair. 

Bokuto chuckles as he crawls up Keiji’s body to kiss him briefly. “Keiji,” he says quietly. His voice is rough, and Keiji shivers at the thought that it’s from taking Keiji’s cock so deep. “Can I fuck you?”

Keiji is nodding before he even registers the question, and he tries to catch his breath as Bokuto leans over him to rummage in the bedside table drawer. Bokuto is pressing one hand along his own dick, as if to keep himself steady, and Keiji pulls him back into a kiss when his lips are within reach. He reaches for Bokuto’s dick, but the man grabs onto his wrist and laughs softly into the kiss. 

“What’s so funny, Bokuto-san?” he says as he pulls away, only mildly irked, all things considered. And maybe he is impatient, but there’s a gorgeous man in front of him who just sucked his dick, and Keiji finally got a glimpse of what’s in store for him next. Hint: It’s fucking huge. 

Bokuto just shakes his head slowly, that taunting, rather vicious grin sharp across his face. “You’re so fucking amazing,” he says. “There’s so much I want to do to you. Let me take care of you, Keiji.” 

Anything outside of the fire of want and need suddenly flees from Keiji’s mind. Bokuto walks backwards on his knees and pulls Keiji’s thighs further apart with his huge, hot hands. Keiji can do nothing except slide further down the bed to be maneuvered at this man’s will. 

When Bokuto dips his head down again, but bypasses his dick, Keiji raises his head to track him until he feels a strong wet heat pressing into the crack of his ass. “Oh shit, oh fuck, Bokuto-san,” he says in a near chant. 

Bokuto pulls away. “Keiji,” he says firmly.

And Keiji presses a hand over his eyes. “K-Koutarou,” he whispers. He’s breathing so fucking hard that he’s not sure how he’s going to last.

Bokuto grunts in affirmation and dips his head back down, gently pulling Keiji’s ass cheeks apart. He starts licking at the rim of his hole, slowly starting to stretch it with his tongue, alternating between kitten licks and pressing the tip in, and Keiji can barely even recognize the sounds being drawn from him. He presses a hand over his mouth, muffling his cries, and his body shakes against the onslaught of pleasure. 

When he feels the pressure of a finger join in, he can’t help but buck his hips and reach for his dick to slowly pump himself. “That’s it, that’s it,” Bokuto says, pulling his mouth away. One finger becomes two, especially slick now with lube smoothing the way. “Uncover your mouth for me, baby. I want to hear you. I’ve been wanting this for so long, Keiji. Fuck, you’re doing so good for me.” 

Bokuto puts a firm hand on Keiji’s hip to hold him steady as he starts to steadily finger fuck him, scissoring his fingers for a moment before adding in a third. 

“Bo - Koutarou, Koutarou,” Keiji says, shaking around the ache of the stretch. Bokuto’s fingers are so thick and long and reaching the deepest places inside of him. “I can’t - I need - “

Bokuto removes his fingers, and Keiji fucking whines at the loss. “I know what you need, baby. I’m gonna fuck you so good. Holy shit, Keiji. You look so fucking good like this.” 

Keiji’s hands are tight fists in the sheets beside his hips as Bokuto slides on a condom and slicks himself with lube. Bokuto’s dick is thick and long and heavy, and Keiji slides further down the bed to get closer as Bokuto holds the base of his length to line himself up. 

When Bokuto nudges the head in, Keiji moans against the stretch. “Shit, shit,” Bokuto mutters under his breath as he presses further in. He pulls slightly out and then in again to feed Keiji more of his dick, slow inch by slow inch, until Keiji finally digs his heels into Bokuto’s back. 

“Just fuck me,” he breaths out. “Koutarou, just do it.” 

And with a groan, Bokuto thrusts all the way in. Keiji cries out at how full he feels and grips onto Bokuto’s shoulders to hold him steady for a moment while he tries to adjust. But he’s so turned on, so flushed with it and so embarrassingly needy that soon he’s grinding his hips forward to find more friction. 

Bokuto takes the hint and slowly starts to move against him, pulling almost all the way out before rolling his hips forward to snap them against Keiji’s ass. 

Soon, they find a rhythm, and it’s all hot breaths and the slide of sweat-speckled skin against skin. The smell of sex is heady and heavy in the air as he gasps against Bokuto’s neck. The deep rumble of Bokuto’s moans is such a fucking turn-on that Keiji just needs more and more and doesn’t ever want it to stop. 

He shoves lightly at Bokuto’s shoulder, and Bokuto takes his meaning, rolling so that Keiji sits astride him. Keiji presses up onto his knees before sinking down, slowly, slowly to feel every inch. Bokuto groans loudly, his hands landing on Keiji’s hips, fingertips digging in like he needs to ground himself as Keiji picks up the pace, riding him faster. 

“I’m close, I’m so close,” Keiji says, voice high with his need. 

“Yeah - yeah, you gonna come for me, Keiji?” Bokuto asks, voice rough. “Come on my chest, baby. Come on.” He lets go of one hip to take Keiji’s cock in hand to jerk him off even as he thrusts his own upwards, making Keiji cry out at the building pressure. 

“Fuck, oh fuck. _Koutarou. Koutarou!”_

And just like that, his orgasm hits, blinding, wiping his mind for anything but that overwhelming rush of pleasure. His cum spurts across Bokuto’s chest and drips off his hand. 

When he finally settles, Bokuto is just watching him with the barest hint of a smile, eyes bright on his face as he gently slides his hands up and down Keiji’s thighs to soothe him through the last tremors running through his body. 

Still breathing heavily, Keiji starts to move again, slowly first from his sensitivity. 

“Keiji, you don’t have to - I can just - “

But Keiji cuts him off, a little more clear-headed now. “I want to,” he says, shaking his head. He’s out of words, still caught up in the overwhelming feeling of being full and sated and still so fucking turned on. He presses both hands on Bokuto’s chest for leverage and moves faster. He feels the twitch of Bokuto’s cock deep inside him, and all he wants is to watch this man fall apart beneath him.

“I’m not - I’m not gonna last much longer,” Bokuto says, tipping his head back into the mattress and visibly swallowing. “Oh fuck, Keiji.” 

Soon, Bokuto’s is fucking up into him, fast and strong, and Keiji is jacking is own dick, crying out as he’s pushed again toward the brink of his control. 

When Bokuto cums, shoving Keiji’s hips down to meet his own and stuffing him so goddamn full, Keiji cums again with him, shutting his eyes tight as his breath stutters out of him with a quiet, exhausted sob. 

Afterward, he’s only half-aware as Bokuto maneuvers him gently onto his back, slowly pulling out. Keiji rests a forearm over his eyes and listens as Bokuto slides carefully off the bed. He’s only aware of time passing when the bed dips next to him again. He blinks his eyes open slowly and sees Bokuto sitting there with a damp towel in hand, a small smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. 

Keiji slowly sits up, accepting the towel, and leans forward to kiss him. It’s deep and slow and so, so gentle. 

When he pulls back, Bokuto lilts another crooked grin at him. He taps a finger against the charm resting against Keiji’s chest with fondness softening his features so clearly even in the dark. “Stay the night?” he asks.

Keiji finds himself smiling back helplessly and nodding before he can even think about what a truly, magnificently bad idea this is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Next time (for real for real - I'm sure this time):**
> 
> The cat is (finally) out of the bag. It's the shit show you'd expect.


	5. the cat’s (finally) out of the bag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenma is full of judgment. Kuroo (the familiar) meets Akaashi. Bokuto is a (terrifying) BAMF.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very excited about this chapter. It's a long one. We’re moving full-steam ahead, babes!

Kenma sits quietly at the kitchen table as his familiar makes breakfast. 

“I mean, you can still call me ‘Kuro’ if you want. It’s pretty close,” the witch hunter is saying in a light tone. He glances over his shoulder with a corny, flirtatious lift of one eyebrow. “Besides, nicknames are kinda kinky.” When Kenma refuses to acknowledge him, he shrugs and turns back around. 

Really though, Kenma is only half paying attention to him for several reasons. First, it’s way too early to function. In cat form, Kuro had stepped all over Kenma’s chest and face this morning at an ungodly hour, yowling pathetically for attention. Second, Kuro as a human has a presence that is more than just physical. Kenma can feel such a weird sense of contentment humming in the back of his head that’s so baffling considering Kuro is essentially a kept animal now. And, finally, Akaashi is still not home.

It seems like Kenma is suddenly surrounded by witch hunters, and he can’t seem to figure out how to get rid of them without resorting to murder. But, he reminds himself, murder is wrong, and one of those murders would invariably break his best friend’s heart. 

Said best friend had sent a text just after midnight saying he’d run into Kenma’s favorite witch hunter (Akaashi’s words) and not to wait up. It was quite clear what that meant. 

But, again, he still wasn’t home yet. 

Akaashi has had brief relationships in the past and would spare Kenma from socializing with each of his smitten suitors by spending time elsewhere with them. But Akaashi has a tendency to flee in the night. Part of it, Kenma knows, is that Akaashi is always afraid of inadvertently exposing his shadow marks to strangers in his sleep. 

Kenma imagines that’s where things tended to fall apart in his previous relationships. Well, that and the fact that everyone else is stupid for assuming Akaashi is a cold person rather than quiet and reserved with caution. And honestly, Akaashi is more than entitled to that caution considering everything he’s been through. 

If Akaashi’s stupid men ever stuck around, they’d find out that, late in the night or in the early morning hours, Akaashi inevitably invades personal space for the warmth of body heat, and he often falls asleep with his head up when he’s exhausted because he’s too lazy to move. 

And though Kenma is not overly fond of physical contact, the sheer certainty of the trust and safety he feels with his childhood friend is comforting enough that he can enjoy Akaashi’s warmth in turn when he presses into him.

But, again, everyone is always stupid. Akaashi included. Kenma knows that the other reason Akaashi leaves in the middle of the night is that part of him thinks he’s a dark little secret invading other people’s lives. He may be beautiful and smart and trustworthy, but being on the run has taken its toll - on the both of them - in so many disparate ways. In the end, when the relationship burns out, Kenma is left with a stiff, stoic Akaashi until the next love-struck loser is captivated by his stupidly good looks with no intention of actually getting to know the man behind them.

However, right now it’s getting into the morning hours, dawn just about to break, and Akaashi is still with his bright-eyed, smitten witch hunter. 

Kuro turns around. “Why are you freaking out and angry right now?”

Kenma glares at him. “Stop reading my mind.”

“How about you quit projecting at me?”

When he doesn’t get another verbal response, Kuro crosses his arms, spatula still in hand, and leans back against the kitchen counter. “It doesn’t feel like you’re upset with _me_ this time. So that’s cool.” He pauses. “Is it your friend Akaashi? He’s your roommate, right? Where is that pretty little shopkeeper anyway?” He glances at the nonexistent watch on his wrist and tilts his head to the side. “Huh. Late night. Did one of his customers finally ask him out?” His smirk becomes salacious in such a dorky way that Kenma isn’t even sure he’s actually annoyed with him or not. 

Regardless, he snaps, “Shut up about him.” 

The witch hunter seems to understand that he’s crossed a line from the way he just raises his hands defensively and turns back to scrambling eggs.

Kenma’s phone buzzes. It’s Akaashi. Fucking finally.

_I have a confession to make._

**u fcked the hunter**

_I didn’t realize that was implicit in my text from last night._

**ur not subtle**

_I’m in the bathroom. He’s still sleeping. He snores a bit._

His phone then buzzes from a series of rapid-fire texts coming in one after another. 

_Kenma, he has all of my Elixir products on the counter.  
He arranged them by height.  
He is the least meticulous person I have ever met in my life. You know how he always puts back every product he touches in the store incorrectly.  
But each of the labels is facing out like they’re on display here, and I’m going through a crisis._

**gtfo**

_Ok.  
But I can’t find my briefs.  
I don’t even remember what happened to all of my clothes last night._

**omg akaashi**

_Ok. I’ll leave the briefs._

**did he even buy u dinner 1st**

Akaashi doesn’t respond for a while, presumably because he’s hightailing it out of the proverbial lion’s den. Then Kenma’s phone buzzes a few times again in rapid succession.

_Kenma, please be nice to me today._  
_I’m heading straight to Elixir._  
_Please bring me clothes._

And then:

_Trust me. He does NOT need to pay for it._

When Kenma looks up from his phone, Kuro is eating directly out of the pan like a heathen and just smirking at him for no good reason. 

After a moment, Kuro says with a curious tone, “You’re laughing on the inside, but you’ve got nothing going on up here.” He gestures to his own face in a circular motion before wagging his eyebrows. “I think this bond thing is gonna be kinda fun!”

Kenma sighs.

.

At Elixir, Kenma finds Akaashi sitting on a stool and hunched over the counter. His hands are gripping his hair. 

Kenma nudges cat-Kuro with the toe of his boot to make him trot ahead of him. He closes the door behind him and locks back up, the shade still drawn until it’s time to open.

Inside, Kuro takes a long stretch before heading in Akaashi’s direction. He’s free to roam outside the cage with the provision that he remains shifted when around anyone else - especially Akaashi. Still, Kenma doesn’t trust him one bit and sets the reconfigured containment-spelled cage on the counter by the register to remind Kuro where Kenma will shove him if he doesn’t behave. 

Kuro meows and leaps up onto the counter next to Akaashi, batting at his hair with one paw like he’s petting the mess of curls. Kenma makes an angry face at him behind Akaashi’s back. Kuro sits on his haunches and looks back at him innocently, daintily licking at his paw. 

“Kenma,” Akaashi says, voice muffled against the countertop. “I’m a mess. Please help me.” 

“I brought you clothes. You should change. You reek of sex and shame.” 

Akaashi whips his head up to glare at him. “I don’t know why people always think you’re the nice one between us. You’re actually the worst.” 

Kenma holds out a backpack of clothes and toiletries. “Tell me more about how I’m the worst.” 

Akaashi gets up to snatch the bag and retreats toward the back of the store. It’s unfair how poised he is even doing a walk of shame and in the middle of an internal crisis. 

There’s a slight nudge in the back of his mind that preludes the flash of red light. And then Kuro is there seated with one leg crossed over the other on the counter as he leans back on his hands. 

“Wow. This is really exciting for me,” he drawls. “You live such juicy lives! So your pretty friend really did go home with a customer, huh? Shit. My best bro is head over heels for him. Does he do that with just anyone? Or - ” 

Kenma roughly nudges at the bond, and Kuro pops back into his cat form with a yowl. He exerts his power to keep Kuro shifted and watches the collar glow faintly red over dark black fur. When Kuro meows despondently at him, Kenma just says, “I told you to shut up about him.”

Not too long after, Akaashi reemerges from the back room. His hair is damp like he ran it under the tap, but at least now he looks like a step up from ‘walk-of-shame.’

“Can I talk to you now without any unwarranted judgment or sass?” Akaashi asks.

“I’d rather you didn’t, but I’m assuming you’re just going to do whatever you want to do without any regard for what _I_ want.” 

Akaashi sits back down at the counter and pets Kuro's back. The cat languishes under the attention like he’s rubbing it in Kenma’s face. “Honestly, I don’t even know what to say.”

“Then repeat after me: ‘He’s a time bomb waiting to go off, and then he’s going to kill us all.’” Kenma ignores the thread of curiosity and concern flowing through the bond from Kuro.

Akaashi turns to face him directly. “He’s a good man, Kenma,” he says softly.

Kenma bites back on the sympathy rising in his chest. People may call Akaashi distant or apathetic, but, if you know where to look, he wears his heart clearly on his sleeve. Kenma just knows this is all going to end terribly. 

“He’s _good,”_ Akaashi insists, taking Kenma’s momentary silence for the message of disagreement it is.

“In bed?” Kenma replies lightly. “I thought we agreed a long time ago not to go into these details. You know they do nothing for me.”

“Kenma!”

“Akaashi.”

“Look, he’s sweet and kind and protective. He’s bright, like a star, in so many ways. And I know how stupid and cheesy that sounds, but it’s true.” He pauses, scrubbing a hand roughly over his face. “I just - I want you to talk to him, not just creep around him in the store like a stalker. You’ll see what I mean right away. This is - he’s...different. He’s _good._ ”

Kenma just shakes his head, the blonde ends of his hair swinging before his face.

Smiling sadly at him, Akaashi lowers his eyes, understanding written all over his face despite the defeat in the slump of his shoulders. 

Between them, Akaashi has always been the most trusting of new people. It was through him that they met Yachi at the hospital. He’s the one who does outreach to find under-the-radar energy wielders in the community to get referrals for new clients for Kenma’s freelance work, like curse and hex breaking. People are drawn to him, and his quiet and steady demeanor. He exudes competence in such a way that inspires immediate trust.

Akaashi’s expression brightens then - as much as Akaashi’s expression can brighten, at any rate. “He gave me something last night.”

“Was it his di - “

Akaashi raises a hand to stop him, but he’s biting back a smile when he says, “Stop it.” He pauses. “But yes. Oh my _god,_ Kenma,” he says. A light splotch of pink starts to spread across his face, and Kenma rolls his eyes. Akaashi reaches underneath the collar of his white shirt beneath his thick, navy blue cardigan and draws out a pendant hanging on a frail gold chain. 

As Kenma steps closer to look at it, he feels a sharp tug in the back of his mind. Suddenly, there’s that bright red flash of light. 

“Kuro!” he yells, but it’s too late. 

Kuro stands there, legs crossed at the ankle as he leans with one elbow on the counter. He grins like the Cheshire Cat down at a stunned Akaashi. “Oya oya! Now, this is _really_ exciting,” he says, pointing at the charm. “That right there belongs to my BFF. What a small fucking world!”

Kenma should have anticipated what happens next, but he’s just so tired and so fed up - with Akaashi, with Kuro, with everyone and everything - that he does nothing but watch when Akaashi’s knife flashes once and slams right into the meat of Kuro’s shoulder. 

“Fuck!” Kuro yells, reeling back and throwing up a bright red shield spell a whole minute too late. 

Akaashi‘s surprised shout is less discernible as he tumbles backward off his stool.

Kenma frowns at Kuro. “I thought you said you were an ace spellcaster.” He glances at where Akaashi is picking himself up, eyes darting to and from Kenma to Kuro. “You’re kind of slow.” 

Kuro looks at him, eyes wide and jaw hanging open. He points at the knife sticking out of his shoulder. “Help, please?” 

“I told you not to shift in front of others,” Kenma replies. 

“An ‘I told you so?’ That’s what we’re going with here?” Kuro cries, looking betrayed. 

Akaashi has straightened into a stand. He’s facing Kenma, defeat heavy in the lines of his shoulders. “Kenma, no,” he breathes. 

Kenma ignores Kuro’s continuous stream of complaints and blinks evenly at Akaashi. “Kenma yes.” 

“Stop that,” Akaashi snaps. “It’s not funny.” 

He looks at Kuro, whose hand is hovering over the hilt of the knife as he seems to debate between pulling it out or leaving it in. 

Akaashi’s eyes sweep over the hunter’s tall, lean figure, catching for a moment on the guild insignia on his duster coat that sits beneath a growing patch of blood from his wound. His attention moves on to a muscled chest and broad shoulders before ending with a narrowed-eyed look at Kuro’s face. Kenma knows what he sees there - the strangely alluring bedhead, bright hazel eyes, and the sharp features and cut of his jawline. 

Kenma swallows, unease rolling in his gut.

Akaashi turns back to him. “Hypocrite,” he says, judgment lurking in his gaze. 

Kenma scowls. “ _This_ was not intentional. He was shifted when he walked into my spell. And I thought he was just a stray.” He gestures at Kuro. “Jury’s still out on that, but it seems we’re both collecting witch hunters these days. So.” 

“Hey!” Kuro objects.

Akaashi stares at Kenma for one moment longer before releasing a big breath. When he looks at Kuro again, it’s with an impassive expression. “I can patch you up, but not if you’re going to kill Kenma,” he says. Then, like an afterthought, “Or me.”

Kuro blinks at him, his constant smirk nowhere in sight. “ _You_ stabbed _me_ , motherfucker!” 

“Would you prefer to bleed out, Kuro-san?” Akaashi replies easily, turning away. 

Kuro looks from the back now facing him, then to Kenma, and then back to Akaashi. “You guys are batshit _crazy._ And _you,_ you stabby little fuck, do _not_ get to call me that. _You_ call me ‘Kuroo.’”

Kenma rolls his eyes and shuffles closer, hopping up onto a stool at the counter. He gestures at where Akaashi has started organizing products in preparation for opening the store. “You may want to take him up on it soon unless you do want to bleed out.”

“What? What is even happening?” Kuro moans. 

His voice is high with distress, and Kenma can feel its echoes through their bond. It’s interesting, though, because Kuro doesn’t seem to feel a hint of fear or even anger right now, just pain and bewilderment. 

“Kenma! _Kenma._ I have a pointy object sticking out of my body, and your friend is doing _inventory!_ ” 

Kenma pulls out his portable gaming console, switching it on. 

“Ok! Ok!” Kuro yells. “There will be no murder today. Please help me, shopkeeper-san. And please don’t stab me anymore.” 

///

Before he opened up for the day, Keiji made Kenma take human-shaped Kuroo to the back room. They need to prepare a summoning circle for Kenma’s freelance curse client tonight anyway. 

Plus, Kuroo refused to shift back into his less-annoying form and wouldn’t stop whining about being stabbed. 

When Keiji unlocks and swings the front door open, the last thing he expects to find is Bokuto leaning right against it. The witch hunter falls backward, clumsily landing right on his ass. Beside him spreads a pool of spilled coffee beneath two to-go cups. 

“Aghashee! Ow!”

“Bokuto-san!” Keiji takes a step back, a sudden urge to bolt flashing through him.

When Bokuto pulls up to a stand, he ruefully rubs a hand behind him. “Uh - hey.” 

“Hi,” Keiji says dumbly. It’s taking everything in him to compose himself. His ass is still sore from last night, for god’s sakes, and he’d seen a trail of purple hickies on his neck when he went to freshen up in the back room. He can see a near twin set on the side of Bokuto’s neck and can’t help but feel a rush of heat flash through his body. 

“Um - so,” Bokuto says. “I’m sorry for just showing up like this, but I - I had a nice time with you last night.” He shoves his hands into his coat pockets and peers hesitantly down at Keiji.

Keiji may be frozen in place at this very moment, but he feels with 100% clarity that he is positively melting before this man. “I had a nice time too, Bokuto-san,” he replies. And then he feels a blush spread hot across his face, mind flashing back to last night. 

Bokuto’s lips pull slowly into a smile as if he can tell just what Keiji is thinking, a hint of that confidence he’d show last night seeping onto his face. “I got you, uh - well.” He sweeps a hand at the spilled coffee. “But let me clean it up!” His eyes dart around as if cleaning supplies will appear at that very moment. 

Keiji just shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. I still have to do my morning sweep anyway. And it’s always quiet in the shop this early. But thank you.”

“Right right.” For a moment, silence hangs heavy between them. Then Bokuto says, “So, you know, Akaashi, I was thinking that maybe, if you’re free later, would you want to go out, like for real this time? I’d really like to take you out. Or I could bring you dinner here! Whatever you want!”

Keiji’s stupor melts away then, allowing him to step forward to rest a hand on Bokuto’s chest. “I’d like that,” he says, looking up at him with his eyes crinkling as something like joy weaves through him.

Bokuto stares down at the hand touching him like he can’t believe it’s there. “Really?” When he looks up, his eyes meet Akaashi’s only briefly before they slip down to his lips like he can’t help it.

Keiji smiles and feels his entire body become warm at the way Bokuto’s entire face brightens up with a big grin in response. “Really.” 

“Akaashi! Yes!” Bokuto whoops. His hands come up to rest on Keiji’s hips, tugging him slightly closer. “So, you like me, huh? I mean - yeah.” He nods as if providing himself with confirmation. “You really like me.” 

Keiji coughs out a laugh. “I do,” he says simply.

Bokuto makes a strangled sound, but instead of speaking further, he leans forward. The kiss is easy, familiar even. It’s so strangely comfortable now to lean into Bokuto, feeling arms wrap warmly around his back as Keiji winds his own around the man’s neck. 

For a moment, Keiji forgets where he is, forgets about Kenma’s judgment and worry, the witch hunter familiar he stabbed, the coffee still pooled on the ground like an accident just waiting to happen. 

He lets himself melt into a series of long kisses, to indulge just a bit longer in this while he can - in Bokuto, in just this little space of time when he’s safe and tentatively happy in a way that he hasn’t felt in a very long time. 

When he finally comes to his senses, he presses one last peck of a kiss to Bokuto’s lips. Bokuto seems a bit dazed, lips chasing his, and Keiji feels satisfaction crawl warmly through him. “I’m glad you came by,” he says softly after another last kiss, reluctant to pull entirely away.

“Oh, me too!” Bokuto exclaims, nodding. “I wasn’t sure if you would - “ His trails off, eyes going distant. 

Keiji watches him carefully, fully and shamelessly cognizant of the fact that he’d let this man fuck him on the shop’s counter right now if he wanted to. But, regretfully, he really does need to finish prepping the shop.

Instead of continuing to speak, Bokuto is frowning and staring over Keiji’s shoulder. 

Keiji follows his gaze and sees Kenma’s birdcage sitting on the counter. 

“What - what is that?“ Bokuto asks softly, taking a few steps away from Keiji. 

Keiji feels suddenly bereft without his warmth. 

Bokuto’s frown intensifies and begins to shift into something darker.

Keiji barely has time to swallow around the sudden stab of unease in his gut when Bokuto shoves a hand forward, palm out. A beam of golden light shoots from his hand - but it sails right over Keiji’s shoulder. He feels the heat of it against his cheek as it passes and trails it with his eyes. Behind him, the birdcage on the counter explodes. Keiji flinches, his arms coming up to shield himself against the blinding array of yellow sparks. 

When he straightens, the light has cleared away like dissipated smoke. In its wake remains a faint cloud of red light energy hovering over the counter. 

With a curl of fingers outlined in gold, Bokuto summons the red cloud closer. Akaashi takes another few steps back at the blatant display of power. 

Bokuto peers closely at the undulating red mist before him. “Kuroo,” he whispers. 

A small noise escapes from the back of Keiji’s throat at the name. 

Bokuto’s gaze snaps to him.

“Bokuto-san,” Keiji says softly, slowly raising his hands in front of himself. “I can explain.” 

Bokuto is quiet for a long moment. Then he says, voice soft and slow with reluctance, as if he’s pulling each word achingly from inside, “Akaashi, my best friend has been missing since yesterday evening. He was hunting a witch.” Keiji twitches at the word, and Bokuto’s eyes narrow. When he speaks next, his voice has turned light with curiosity. “I was out looking for him when, strangely enough, I ran right into _you.”_

The hair on the back of Keiji’s neck rises with dread at Bokuto’s words, at what he seems to be implying. Keiji can barely even recognize him then. The gold of his eyes has become dark as they sweep over Keiji like he’s seeing him for the first time. His handsome and normally kind face is oddly shadowed by disbelief and bewilderment. His posture is tight, the lines of his shoulders at once on guard and tense with distrust. Everything about him screams of a predatory nature, and Keiji is overcome with the thought that he’d never been afraid of Bokuto’s height and solid, muscled bulk before.

The sum total of the changes paints an undeniable picture of what Bokuto must be seeing in this moment with growing clarity - all in the absence of the truth behind Keiji’s secrets: betrayal. 

The word hangs between them like a specter, but Keiji is powerless, helpless in his sudden onslaught of fear. He is frozen in this moment, unable to speak a word to dispel the idea of betrayal from existence. Instead, he can only watch Bokuto transform with his new-found knowledge in a way Keiji never could have anticipated from the gentle giant of a man he thought he knew.

Bokuto takes a step forward, slowly as if he might spook Keiji. And though no magic has been cast on him at all, Keiji can’t seem to bring himself to move a single inch beneath the weight of his stare. 

Lifting his hand, Bokuto draws a rune in the air before him. There, in his palm, sparks rapidly collect, growing and lengthening until, together, they manifest into a shining gold sword - a witch hunter relic, a weapon used to kill shadow creatures.

Keiji’s breath is heavy and stuttering as he sucks in each one, chest heaving, tears suddenly springing into his eyes from sheer terror as he stares at the sword while Bokuto, light guild witch hunter, steps ever closer. 

“You - you gave me _hope_ last night, Keiji, when I needed it most. Do you realize that?” Bokuto says, voice breaking. And then his face constricts, becomes vicious with anger compounded by perceived betrayal. “And then you _fucked me,”_ he hisses. 

Bokuto’s eyes are shining, and maybe those are tears pooling and on the cusp of spilling down his face, but Keiji can’t register anything past the sudden crippling terror turning his bones to ice. Bokuto stops his advance, adjusting his grip on the sword. Gold begins to glow all around his body, light energy filling him from head to toe. 

Keiji realizes with sudden numbness that he has never seen or felt so much power in one person before. 

“I woke up to an empty bed this morning, but I figured you had to get to work. And you know what’s stupid? I was so sad that I didn’t get the chance to wake up next to you.” He cuts a slice of a self-deprecating smile and shrugs his broad shoulders. “But I’m here now. And what do I find but a dark energy containment spell sitting right on your counter.” The witch hunter’s face shifts, his teeth bared in what could hardly be called a smile anymore. 

Keiji feels the tears in his eyes spill over. He swallows, trying to form words, but they don’t come to mind, let alone fall from his lips. His hands are shaking in front of him, outstretched as if to ward Bokuto off, but he feels as frail as a bit of paper standing against a firestorm. He can’t think of a single spell or rune right now - despite how much practice Kenma has forced on him for years in case something like this ever happened, and despite how often he’s had to defend himself on the fly against shadows in the years and years that he and Kenma have been on the run.

“Bokuto-san,” he whispers. 

Bokuto juts his chin toward the red cloud hovering next to him. “This is a bit of Kuroo’s energy,” he says, his voice low. The vicious smile bleeds off his face, and in its place is just that cold, devastated fury. “It was entwined with your containment spell, Akaashi.”

Keiji slowly shakes his head. “Please, Bokuto-san,” he says, voice barely audible now. 

Bokuto smiles again, sharp and nasty. “You beg really prettily,” he says, “for a _fucking witch.”_ He adjusts his stance, his sword moving with him in a practiced movement like it’s just an extension of his body. “Tell me what you did to him.” 

Keiji can’t think, can’t seem to swallow past his fear. He is utterly beholden to this nightmare of a reality that he and Kenma have avoided at all costs, have run from every day of their lives. Here he stands, numb, terrified, filled with sudden helpless sadness as he faces the consequences of his own stupidity - his own irrational heart - staring at the manifestation of his own worst fears. 

“Keiji,” Bokuto says quietly, the anger in voice suddenly cracking beneath the weight of what sounds like grief. The sound is a broken and sad mimicry of its usual current of warmth. “Just tell me what you did to Kuroo. _Please.”_

Keiji realizes Bokuto’s cheeks are wet with tears and feels a flash of hope dare to curl in his heart. He opens his mouth to speak, hands falling to his sides, but no words spill out. 

He thinks then of Kenma in the back room, reluctantly bickering with his handsome witch hunter familiar, with whom he is now inextricably bound to by dark energy. Kenma, hidden away behind a bookcase and a secret door in a heavily warded safe room. Kenma, who dragged him out of a burning house when they were just children. Kenma, who loves video games and web spells and apple pie. 

And then Keiji lets out a slow, quiet, trembling breath. The silence grows long, too long, in the wake of Bokuto’s question, and he watches as those beautiful, strong, familiar hands tighten around the hilt of that golden, witch-killing sword. 

Keiji presses his lips together, lets his eyes fall closed, and waits. 

///

“So you’re a curse breaker? That’s your job? Like, to pay the bills?”

Despite being well-versed in this ritual, Kenma hates the feeling of chalk on his hands. Akaashi usually does this part for him, but what with unleashing Kuro the cat/witch hunter on him this morning, Kenma can suck it up this one time. He continues tracing a wide circle on the wooden floorboards. 

“Kenma? Can you hear me? Should I see if I can push my thoughts through our bond instead?”

Kenma shoots a glare at Kuro, who smiles in response, appeased at the attention. 

“That’s pretty cool though,” Kuro says. “Curse breaking. You ever connect with the light guilds for cases? We hire curse breakers all the time, you know. Good ones are hard to find.”

“I will never work with a light guild,” Kenma replies tonelessly. 

It’s quiet for a moment, and Kenma hazards a curious look in Kuro’s direction at the lack of a response. The ever-present smirk is nowhere to be seen. Instead, there’s something that looks too much like sadness in his eyes that it makes Kenma’s insides clench uncomfortably. He looks away and moves onto the inner circle, sketching out runes and sigils that he could probably recite in his sleep at this point. 

“Never is a long time,” Kuro says finally, voice going soft. 

Kenma looks back up at Kuro, suddenly irritated. “Why do you keep asking about me? Why do you keep doing - whatever this is you’re doing? I trapped you. I can control your shifts and your power. I’m a _witch_.”

Kuro is strangely quiet then, eyes roaming over Kenma’s face as if trying to look for an answer to a question he never asked. And then he just shrugs. “I like you,” he says simply. 

“You don’t like me,” Kenma snaps. “That’s stupid. You don’t even _know_ me.” He’s strangely upset, and he wants Kuro to stop looking at him like that. 

Kuro tosses his hands up and says, “I know enough.” Kenma opens his mouth to bite out a response, but Kuro cuts him off. “I knew you for weeks before we bonded, Kenma. You came by our spot regularly and showed kindness to a stray cat on a grungy side street downtown. You fed me my favorite salted, grilled mackerel every time. Once, you held me for hours and kept me warm in your scarf when I was exhausted after a hard patrol shift a few weeks ago. Though really, you should think a bit more about where something’s been before you touch it.” 

Kenma twitches in place, his gaze now averted and locked on the half-built summoning circle below him at the onslaught of Kuro’s words. There’s a strange feeling building in his chest. But Kuro isn’t done. 

“I know you don’t hate people, you’re just wary of them, anxious around them, if the way you always need something occupying your hands is anything to go by. You’re quiet and rarely vocal around others - except Akaashi, I guess. And I can tell you’re always aware of what’s happening around you from the way you side eye things like the snarky little asshole you are, passing judgement on everybody.” 

Kenma looks up then and is unprepared for the fond way Kuroo is looking down at him from where he leans against the side wall. His arms are folded across his chest. At Kenma’s attention, a small smile breaks across his face.

“I know - “ Kuro swallows, smile faltering, “I know that you seem to think you’re a cold person, unfeeling maybe, from the way you talk about yourself, and from - from the way you don’t let anybody else in. But I also know, based on the lengths you’re willing to go to protect your friend - “ Kuro gestures to his bond collar with another soft smile, “ - that your capacity for love is greater than you think.” 

Kenma is staring at him, struck silent like he’s caught in some sort of spell. 

Kuro shrugs. “So, yeah. I like you,” he says again. 

///

Tetsurou is almost glad for the explosion - if only to distract from the heat he feels burning on his cheeks at saying so much and feeling so much and probably projecting down the line of their bond - except for the fact there is a fucking explosion.

He gets only a glimpse of a heart-wrenching expression on Kenma's face when the thunderous, floor-shaking shockwave of light energy blows them into the back wall. It flows in such thick, stifling waves that they’re forced flat on the ground for a few seconds that feel like hours. 

Then all at once, it’s gone, whipping away back out of the room like it’s being sucked into a vacuum. 

He meets Kenma’s startled gaze, and then they’re both up and racing for the main storeroom. 

Tetsurou doesn’t have the chance to say anything to Kenma on their way out, but he recognized that wave of power, its gold warmth as familiar as a second skin. 

His heart is pumping in his chest with adrenaline and worry about what could have caused Bokuto to release that much power. He has a vague suspicion, and it just prompts him to move faster.

When he shoves the door open and slides the bookcase to the side, he sees Akaashi across the room, a crumpled figure on the ground against the counter. 

Kenma makes a low, distressed sound behind him, but Tetsurou can see that Akaashi is conscious, holding his hand out shakily before him, eyes wide. And there, like a beacon of near-blinding gold light, is Bokuto. But he’s on his knees, and his sword hangs loosely in his grip, resting lightly on the ground beside him. He’s looking at Akaashi like he’s seen a ghost. 

Strangely, between them is a sphere of pearlescent white magic. It shimmers steadily, wholly encompassing Akaashi’s figure like a bubble. 

Tetsurou only manages to take a couple of steps toward them when he feels a sudden jerk in the back of his mind, stronger than he’s felt yet. He chokes out a sound as he falls to one knee, feeling terribly faint and weak. He braces himself with one fist to the ground to steady himself. 

He looks up just as Kenma walks past him, power beginning to glow around his form - dark and light energy both, yellow and red. 

“Kenma,” Tetsurou breathes, struggling to pull his own power back, but it’s seeping out of him like water through a sieve. His collar burns against his neck as he reaches out to grasp at Kenma’s leg. “Wait!” 

But Kenma kicks him off and advances steadily, hands open at his sides and pooling with light turning from a mix of yellow and red to orange. 

Bokuto has eyes for nothing but Akaashi in that moment and doesn’t see Kenma coming until the blast hits him. In one bright rush of power, Bokuto is thrown backwards through the shop’s heavy wooden shelves, glasses and bottles shattering in his wake until he’s stopped with a thud halfway up the brick wall. 

The swirl of orange power lashes out to wrap around Bokuto’s limbs like whips of orange fire, holding him steady against the brick by his wrists and his ankles, splaying him like an insect on a board. His sword drops from his hand with a clang against the wooden floor. 

“Leave Akaashi _alone,”_ Kenma says, voice low, his hands stretched out before him. Light gushes from his palms to feed more power into the shackles.

From where Tetsurou kneels, even he can see Bokuto just stare at Kenma, eyes wide. His eyes dart back and forth between Kenma’s black and blonde hair and Akaashi’s still-prone figure against the bottom of the counter, conflict and doubt clouding his gaze. 

Tetsurou forces himself up to a stand, and when he gets close, Bokuto’s eyes light on him and start to spill over. 

“Tetsu?” he whispers. His voice is reedy with emotion, but his eyes are dark and wide with desperation. 

“Bo,” he says, giving him a reassuring smile through his exhaustion. 

Tetsurou realizes then that he still hasn’t reported in to Nekoma, that he’s been so occupied with the bond and Kenma and having a new presence in the back of his mind that he hasn’t given any thought to anything outside of this little space of time between them. 

He’s certain then that, in the time he’s been out of reach, Nekomata has probably been pissed as all hell. Kai is probably overcome with worry but picking up the mantle of leader without a problem. Yaku, that little shit, is probably sitting nice and easy somewhere. And Bokuto - well. Bokuto is right here. Freaking the fuck out.

“Bo,” he says, tentatively, “listen to me.”

But if Tetsurou knows anything, it’s that Bokuto is stubborn. He is incredibly strong in heart and will and power and ready to throw himself headfirst without a thought at the barest hint of danger to protect the people he loves. And this, what he must be seeing right now, is more than just a hint of it.

“Stay back,” Bokuto orders. 

Tetsurou cuts a quick glance at Kenma, hoping he’ll find some reason there, but he sees that Kenma only has eyes for Bokuto. His hands are curled into claws as he continues channeling magic. 

Tetsurou can see why. Bokuto’s power is still a bright aura around his figure, not diminished in the least by the manacles holding him in place. And now, the gold is beginning to dig cracks as it roots into the orange light of dark and light energy.

Then the gold of Bokuto’s aura of power grows impossibly brighter still. Tetsurou is breathless from awe at its magnitude. 

The fiery shackles around Bokuto’s wrists and ankles suddenly implode in a shower of sparks. Before he can fall to the ground, Bokuto presses his feet to the brick wall, and he kicks forward, shooting like a projectile back at Kenma with a roar. 

He hears Akaashi shout desperately, “Kenma!” 

Kenma settles into a defensive stance, hands still held before him, a swirling ball of mingled orange energy growing larger and larger between his hands. 

It prompts Tetsurou to pull the last bit of energy he has left to stagger forward, one hand to his neck as if squeezing the collar can keep his power contained, but he still feels it trickling away from him. 

Somehow he makes it. He plants himself before Kenma, one hand outstretched, and he mentally _screams_ a plea for trust down the line of their bond. The heat of that orange fire of power licks at his palm. He’s certain if it didn’t contain his own magic, it would have burned his hand. 

He reaches his other hand out desperately toward Bokuto and sees his friend’s eyes fly wide open just before Bokuto manages to somehow veer away, just clipping Tetsurou as he tumbles into the mess of shelves to the side. 

The light of Bokuto’s energy incinerates the sleeve of Tetsurou’s coat, the shirt beneath it, down to his skin, charring it immediately. White hot pain shoots through Tetsurou, and he falls back to his knees with a cry. He feels so terribly weak and dizzy. 

Vaguely, he notices that the heat he felt from Kenma’s direction slowly dissipates, the warm glow if it leaving that side of him suddenly cold. Worry overtakes the feeling of fear thrumming through their bond, and he tries to push reassurance back in return. 

“Kuroo?” Tetsurou looks up and sees Bokuto lurching forward over broken glass and splintered wood. He’s a disheveled mess, and his hair has fallen so flat he almost looks like a stranger. “Tetsurou,” he says, voice breaking in a sob. He drops to his knees in front of Tetsurou and pulls him into a smothering hug. 

Tetsurou makes a small sound of pain when Bokuto jolts his burnt arm, but he hugs him back tightly with his other. Over his friend’s shoulder, he sees Kenma has rushed over to Akaashi’s side. “Bo, are you ok?” he asks quietly. “What the hell was that?” 

Bokuto is shaking slightly, and when he pulls away, his face is wet and his shoulders are slumped down. He can’t seem to meet Tetsurou’s eyes. “You were missing,” he says, his voice empty. “You were missing, and I couldn’t find you. I was useless while you were - you - ”

“I’m right here. I’m here. I’m ok.” 

Bokuto buries his head in his palms and scrubs at his face before running his hands through his hair. When he looks up, his eyes are flooded with more tears. “Tetsu, Tetsu, what did they do to you?” he asks. His voice is reedy with emotion, but his eyes are dark and wide with desperation. Then Bokuto’s attention catches on his neck, expression clearing and turning blank. He’s barely breathing when he whispers, malice seeping into his voice, “They _bound you?”_

Tetsurou feels the collar still warm against his skin in the aftermath of the power transfer. Before he can begin to explain, Bokuto is jolting to his feet with a howl of fury. 

He lights up in an instant like a match flickering to life, and his bright, overwhelming power washes over all of them like a golden wave, blowing the debris of the store away in a large radius around them. Bokuto sweeps his arms forward and up and then shoves another wave of blinding power, but this time right at Tetsurou. He’s pulled off his knees and tugged, helpless to the golden power lifting him into the air. Tetsurou feels the collar warm up against his neck again, and then a beam of red light shoots from it right at Kenma. 

Bokuto’s next wave of power rushes inevitably at Kenma next, who becomes surrounded by the gold energy and begins to rise into the air, limbs stretching outward, his back arching. He cries out in pain.

“Bokuto, stop!” he hears Akaashi scream. “Koutarou!”

Bokuto’s eyes are glowing so brightly they’re like beams as he glares up at Kenma’s form. He stretches out his right hand beside him, and his sword flies straight into his palm. 

Tetsurou tries to speak, but he’s so drained and so weak.

All at once, Bokuto swings his sword with both hands and cuts through the red line with another furious roar. 

Tetsurou feels a sharp, painful ‘CRACK’ reverberate through his entire body and deep into his mind. He suddenly feels empty, cold. 

Energy rushes back into him all at once, and he breathes out a sigh of relief as he finds the strength to land on his feet once Bokuto’s power releases him. Yet despite the comfort of his own light energy sitting safely inside him again, everything is so horribly quiet - so, so quiet it’s like his ears are ringing with the silence. 

He watches numbly as Kenma drifts, limp, to the ground like a feather, Akaashi’s hands raised and blue-green power shining as the source of the slow descent.

When the pain starts to clear, when his ears stop ringing, Tetsurou swallows past the fear and the odd weight of loneliness in his mind, and he realizes what has happened. 

He prods at his neck with his fingertips and feels nothing but smooth skin. He’s bereft in a way he wouldn’t have expected, somehow utterly gutted and devastated. His hand is shaking when he lowers it from his neck. 

He turns to look at Bokuto then, fear snaking through his veins for the first time as he looks upon his best friend. 

Bokuto has broken Tetsurou’s bond with Kenma. But it had been a bond of dark energy, a caster’s elaborate web of a spell, strengthened by a reciprocal and shared source of power between two mature magic wielders. It shouldn’t have been possible for anyone but Kenma to break - let alone a light energy wielder.

“Bo,” Tetsurou starts, but he realizes he doesn’t even know what to say.

Bokuto doesn’t look back at him. He’s not looking at Kenma. He’s not looking at Akaashi. Instead, as the glow of his power fades slowly away, Tetsurou sees what has caught his attention.

There, in the wake of his power’s glow and stark against Bokuto’s tanned skin are thick, raised marks in black wrapping all the way around his wrists. They’re mirrored by the foreign, dark, crisscrossing blocks of lines that are suddenly etched into the skin of his neck. 

Bokuto slowly looks up to meet Tetsurou's gaze, horror and fear and confusion rippling across his face. Then he crumples to the ground, out cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, I eat out of the skillet all of the time. No judgment to Kuroo. 
> 
> Second, oh, man. There was quite a bit of conjecture about what would happen after chapter 4, so I thought I’d respond to your guesses! (Btw, I LOVE reading your impressions of this world and thoughts on where the story’s going! Your responses and questions have been so helpful in helping me determine where more clarity is needed around particular plot points.) 
> 
> So, if Akaashi had stayed through the morning, long enough for Bokuto to wake up to see his shadow marks, would things have ended up differently? In short, no. But would Bokuto still have reacted so violently if Akaashi’s witchiness had not been tied to Kuroo being MIA? Maybe not, but this is the inflection point where things begin to shift in Bokuto’s world view, and the discrepancies among the characters about light and dark energy, the witch purge decades ago, and just witches in general begin to come to light. 
> 
> Anyway, I settled where I settled with the bokuaka confrontation scene, and it was so scary to write it this way! My fingertips were legit going numb and cold, but that also could have been because of my poor circulation issues.
> 
> Thanks so much for sticking with this fic, which came out of nowhere and refused to be left unwritten. <3
> 
>  **Next time:**  
>  We face the aftermath and some hard truths. 
> 
> FYI, it may take me a bit longer to post the next chapter. I also may need to add a chapter to the end, but fingers crossed we make it in eight! ;)


	6. the devil at the crossroads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We face the aftermath and some hard truths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! The last chapter was a LOT. Yet somehow this one was tougher to write. Exposition is so hard! 
> 
> Please forgive me for playing around with time in the different points of view. I hope that this chapter begins to answer some of your questions, though I anticipate it may surface a few more...haha! More on all of this is in the end notes. 
> 
> Also, I didn’t get to Hinata (again). Ugh. Next time for sure! Probably. Maybe.

Keiji lifts a hand up to the itch at his right temple and winces at the contact. When he looks at his fingertips, they’re dappled with blood. He must have hit his head during Bokuto’s first explosion of light energy. He’s still reeling from the sheer amount of power he’d been exposed to today.

Nearby, Kuroo sits next to Bokuto, holding his hand and tracing the shadow marks on his wrist with his thumb. Kuroo’s other arm is singed and smoking, but Keiji can only stare, remembering the already healing stab wound on his shoulder and thinking distantly that the witch hunter’s left side is not faring well today. He notices as well the distinct lack of the bond collar from around his throat. 

Around them, the shop is a mess. It seems appropriate, really. Keiji stares with vacant eyes at the pool of coffee by the entrance. He should probably turn the ‘open’ sign on the door around to ‘closed.’

“Are you ok?”

At the sudden sound of Kenma’s voice in the silence, he turns to his right. Kenma’s cheek is resting on his forearms over bent knees. He looks small and frail, his blonde hair disheveled beneath black roots. No one looking at him would have thought that he had just moments before controlled with incredible precision the power of two adult energy wielders. And gone toe to toe with the strongest energy wielder Keiji had ever met. 

He wonders at the fact that Kenma isn’t still poised defensively. Instead, he looks drained and defeated in a way that Keiji has never seen from him. Since they were kids, Kenma has always been quiet, so sharp and so perceptive that often he is overcome with anxiety and self-consciousness. Though others sometimes perceive that as meaning Kenma is cowed and easily toes the line for fear of repercussions, in truth, Kenma is undeniably obstinate. He has a quiet, internal steeliness beneath his naturally impassive and sometimes worried-looking expression in the face of adversity. 

Now, though, resignation is outlined throughout the lines of his body and in the crinkles on his forehead and around his eyes. Keiji wonders absently if it is a result of his newly broken bond, or if seeing a witch hunter step forward to protect him from a light energy attack perhaps threw him more than he’s showing.

Keiji swallows past the lump in his throat. “It seems you were right - about everything,” he says softly. 

Kenma cracks a rare smile. “Tell me something new.” 

Despite the utter destruction around them, Keiji can’t help his own small smile from spreading across his face. It breaks down the dam holding the rest of his tears at bay. He presses the sleeve of his forearm over his eyes and tilts his head back against the counter with a soft thud. 

He is emotionally drained and filled with uncertainty about what will happen to them next with two witch hunters right there blocking the door - though they were clearly not in top form at the moment.

Yet Keiji can’t bring himself to feel an ounce of regret. He doesn’t regret last night with Bokuto. Or that the witch hunter knows now that Keiji wields dark energy. It almost feels like a burden has been lifted. 

Keiji has never exposed his own part in the magical community to anyone he’s been intimate with before. He has always locked away this fundamental part of himself behind the complex layers of his own fear. 

Only Kenma has seen his shadow marks. Only Kenma knows about the accessibility to dark energy power that Keiji’s parents had hidden from him until their deaths. Only Kenma knows that Keiji had not opened himself up to the shadow realm to access dark magic at all. It had been thrust upon him. 

But then again, the reverse also is true. Neither has Kenma shared his shadow marks with another - or that primal detail that he had not asked for the ability to harness dark energy either. 

They remained different from other witches in a way that made them specifically unique - and therefore hunted. 

Between them and their shared secrets is an impenetrable bond of trust - no one able, or permitted - to encroach on it so long as they have each other. To let anyone else in would break that bond and expose the other to danger. And that honed instinct to protect at all costs, to survive for just another day more, has become so ingrained in the fabric of their being that a betrayal of that nature is entirely unimaginable. 

But Keiji has also never been in a relationship of any kind with a magic wielder before - someone who is a part of the same world, albeit on the other side of it. He had never gotten close to anyone who could be a threat to Kenma - to himself - in quite this way. 

He had never wanted to before. 

And, somehow, it all feels like this has all been a long time coming - perhaps even inevitable. 

He thinks back to the frightening way Bokuto had transformed before his eyes into a nightmare of a witch hunter realized and how he’d drawn his witch-killing sword forward. 

But the blow didn’t come. 

Keiji had waited and waited and trembled and shook and felt tears of fear and of sorrow slipping down his face. 

But still the blow didn’t come. 

When he’d reluctantly blinked open his eyes, Bokuto was just staring at him, furious and desperate and - and so sad. That transparency on Bokuto’s face, his apparent inability to hide his thoughts and feelings was something that had wound a sense of trust in Keiji’s heart that he typically was not inclined to feel. 

“Koutarou,” Keiji had said, and it was almost a question. He’d made his choice to remain silent in the face of the consequences before him, had resigned himself to his fate. He’d drawn the line in the sand and waited for Bokuto to step across it, to acknowledge that it existed and that they stood on opposing sides. 

And yet there they were - at an unexpected standstill. 

“Don’t,” Bokuto had bitten out, frustration low in his voice. 

Keiji struggled with how to proceed. The idea that Koutarou would feel betrayed, used even, in that specific way wrenched painfully at Keiji’s heart. 

Yes, Bokuto was a light energy wielder and a witch hunter. But Bokuto also fought shadows to protect people. He was kind and thoughtful and joyful, quick to laugh at himself and quick to help out around the store during busy hours. He’d given Keiji a protective charm because he worried about Keiji walking alone late at night after closing up the shop. He kept Elixir products lined up in his bathroom like they were on display. Bokuto was a star in the midst of a darkness that Keiji had trouble seeing past on most days. 

“I never meant to hurt you,” Keiji said then. 

“Shut up!” Bokuto cried. “Just - just shut up for a minute, Akaashi. Please.” 

Then he looked away, and Keiji felt that impossible curl of hope winding in his chest again as the gold tip of that witch-killing sword dipped down toward the ground. Bokuto ran a hand through his gray and black hair, which hung in light waves around his face now that it wasn’t spiked high. He looked vulnerable then, exhausted and sad, like his anger had been leached away. 

But then he spoke again. “I don’t want to hurt you.” His voice was even as his gaze darted back up to meet Keiji’s. Something in his firm tone, despite the words, made dread stab at Keiji’s gut. “But you’re still a witch, and you’re still a liar.” 

Bokuto raised his left hand and began to sketch a rune into the air, one that Keiji was more than familiar with. In its completed form, it was the same spell that coated the shop with traces of his own blue-green power, hidden behind a second illusion spell. It had been relatively ineffective against Bokuto’s power when Keiji had activated it before to ask about the shadow burn on his cheek. 

“Wait,” he said, desperation rushing through him. “Bokuto-san, wait!” 

With a last line traced in the air, the rune was sealed with a sharp, golden glow of power. 

Keiji raised a hand as if to ward it off, but it was fruitless. He’d seen firsthand now the level of light energy power that Bokuto possessed. Keiji’s own accessibility to dark magic was relatively low. It was enough to enhance natural energy and cast light spells that barely pulled at the shadow marks on his wrists, and he’d never used enough dark energy, perhaps couldn’t, to cause new ones to appear. Bokuto’s power was a Goliath against his own David.

But he had to try. He pressed his hand forward, willing dark energy to rise from the ground and the depths of the shadow realm, to move into his body, pulling desperately at it in an effort to protect himself, risking that he may be branded with a new shadow mark if only he could ward off Bokuto’s golden truth spell. 

Because if it hit him, he would succumb to it. His own propensity toward magic was too weak to protect him against light energy like this, let alone the magnitude of Bokuto’s power. And if it touched him, it would force him to reveal the truth about Kuroo, about the bond - and expose Kenma to a witch hunter. 

The spell shot toward him. Keiji felt the heat of it graze against the skin of his palm.

Unexpectedly, there was a sudden, blinding flash. Pearlescent white light energy burst around him, encompassing him entirely. And there, against its surface before him, Bokuto’s truth spell shattered, dripping sparks toward the ground. 

When the light cleared, the white shield remained as a shimmering barrier between them. And hovering beneath his chin, pulling against the frail chain around his neck, was the protection charm Bokuto had given him the night before - also glowing that pearl white color and positively exuding light energy. 

Through the protective shield, Keiji saw that Bokuto’s eyes were blown wide. “That’s - that can’t be - “ he whispered, breaking off in shock, a torrent of emotions rushing across his face. It settled on devastation, the kind that broke a person and left them forever changed. 

And then Bokuto exploded. His magic flashed, all-encompassing and torrential, blowing from the center of his body outward in a powerful, rushing gold wave of magnificent power. 

Keiji felt the brunt of the impact as it hit hard against the bubble of protective energy around him. Swept in the wake of Bokuto’s power, Keiji was smashed against the counter, but the white shield held strong around him, protecting him from the magic rushing around the shop, even ashe sank to heap on the ground. 

The light faded. Left in the clearing, Bokuto was shaking, his face wet with tears. He approached Keiji and dropped to his knees. “Keiji. Keiji,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to - ” He cut himself off with a broken sound. “Are you ok?”

Keiji couldn’t help but reach his hand out again as if to console him. He felt powerless when confronted by the utter devastation writ across Bokuto’s face as he stared back, his haunted face white as a sheet, on the other side of a protective light energy barrier that felt so warm and gentle and safe - like a mother’s love. 

And then Kenma had come for him. 

///

Koutarou comes to with a groan. He pushes up on his hands, the world swimming before him, feeling oddly jittery and itchy. He looks to his left, where Kuroo is looking at him carefully. 

“I’m fine,” he mutters, though he’s not sure he believes his own words. 

He scrubs a hand down his face. When he looks up, he sees Akaashi’s angry little witch friend. He sees Akaashi, his shadow marks visible where one sleeve is slightly pushed up his wrist, just before it’s tugged back down. He sees his mother’s protective charm still faintly glowing against Akaashi’s chest. 

Koutarou sighs, heart heavy, dropping his gaze down to his lap. 

He is a shadow hunter for a reason. His entire life, since he was a child and his parents were killed, has been dedicated to protecting people. To make people feel safe, to banish the dark, to cast light with his power. 

Yet sitting there across the room is someone who had faced a situation that activated a protective charm - against presumed harm, and against Koutarou himself. And it wasn’t just anyone. It was Akaashi. And Koutarou had hurt him with his power. 

It was nearly immediately clear that Akaashi had not created the containment spell. The light energy on the spell had matched the little pudding-haired witch’s energy signature when they’d fought. What part Akaashi played, Koutarou has no clue, just that the only thing making him guilty was his association with another. 

He’d been so consumed by his own hurt and anger at the deception, that Akaashi was a witch and somehow connected with Kuroo going missing - but mostly, in the aftermath, he just felt lost. He’s supposed to be a leader in light, and here he was, a sucker for someone he knew nothing about. As a result of his own state, his constant weakness recognized across the guilds’ leadership, he’d lashed out and hurt someone. 

And still, he has the sense that maybe he’s gotten it all wrong. He’d thought he’d been on the right side of things. That was until the very last moment when Kuroo - his best bro, BFF, blood-pact brother, partner in crime - had stood against him. He’d planted himself against Koutarou himself to protect someone else. And with his power, Koutarou had hurt him too.

“Fuck,” he says under his breath. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

A warm hand settles on his shoulder. “Bro. It’s gonna be ok,” Kuroo says. When Koutarou looks at him, he’s at once overwhelmed with relief that Kuroo is here and not missing and not dead and not bonded, but then he catches sight of his friend’s burnt arm and the splotch of blood on his shoulder.

“Kuroo!” He points at the injured area and immediately draws on his power. It’s weak at this point, difficult to pull from his well of light energy, but it rises to his fingertips, ever reliable. He puts an emergency stasis spell on Kuroo’s left side and watches as the tense lines on his friend’s face ease.

“Thanks, Bo,” Kuroo says. His eyes drop down, and Koutarou catches a glimpse of the marks on his own wrists. 

Koutarou gotten dizzy after breaking that bond. It had felt like a backlash of dark energy that washed through his entire body - cold and sharp, as if it was scraping away at everything inside him.

But then he’d seen the marks, felt the burn of one of the thick lines like a brand on his right wrist. 

He thought of that strange backlash of energy that had rushed through his body, and when it was gone, he’d felt strangely lighter and relieved. That resultant feeling had been suddenly overwhelming, as if a weight had been lifted from his very soul that he hadn’t even known he’d been carrying.

After that - nothing. 

“You’re seeing what I’m seeing, right?” Koutarou asks tonelessly, flipping his hands palm up and down and back up again. 

Kuroo stills one hand and smooths a thumb next to the one blistered black scar on Koutarou’s right wrist. Unlike the others, it is still hot, as if recently branded. “Yeah,” he says softly. 

“Yamiji can fix this, right? Or Nekomata?”

The way Kuroo is looking at him makes Koutarou feel sick. “We’ll figure it out,” is all Kuroo says. He’s quiet for a moment, and then he asks, “Bo, how’d you break the bond?” 

Koutarou jerks, pulling his arm away. He looks at his sword resting on the ground next to him. It shimmers gold like always, but for some reason, he’s not comforted by it. Absently, he traces the rune that will transfer it back to the pocket realm. “I don’t know.” 

Kuroo shoots a glance at where the witches are staring at them. Koutarou follows his gaze to where they’re leaning against the countertop, somehow both expressionless despite the mess around them. It’s unsettling. 

“Have you ever used dark energy before?” Kuroo asks.

Koutarou snaps his gaze back to Kuroo, aghast. “What! No! What the fuck, Kuroo! I’m a light energy wielder - I can’t!” 

“You just used it though,” the blonde witch says. “So you can channel it.”

“Leave me alone!” Koutarou snaps at him. 

“You did though, Bokuto,” Kuroo says, shooting a quick, pleading glance at the witch. Bokuto frowns at him. Whose side is he on anyway? “You know how this works, man. Only witches have access to dark energy and the shadow realm.” 

It’s something Koutarou doesn’t want to think about. Not with shadow marks on his wrists. Not with two witches across the room staring at him like _he’s_ the monster. 

But the truth is, he can feel it - the pull of dark energy at his fingertips. It’s at once familiar and entirely foreign. He realizes he has always felt it, that it’s identifiable now - that itch at his fingertips. 

He’d mentioned it once to Yamiji, who’d looked at him like he was being clueless again and told him to go find someone to spellcast spar with him. He said it was probably an abundance of light energy because Koutarou had seemingly inherited his mother’s power. 

When Bokuto had broken Kuroo’s bond, that wave of _otherness_ that coursed through him had snapped something inside of him, a dam holding back a flood of energy. And the flood behind the dam had felt familiar. And suddenly the itch was not a question, but an answer, and he could feel its source - sticky and enthralling somewhere deep inside him.

“I don’t know, man,” Koutarou just says plainly, looking at Kuroo despondently. “I didn’t think about it being made from dark energy, only that it bound you. And that a witch was trying to kill me.” 

He shoots a frown at the blond-haired witch. He gets a blank expression back that makes him uneasy. 

“That’s just like you,” Kuroo says, a slow grin spreading across his face. “Only _you_ would break all the laws of magic without even knowing how you did it.” 

Bokuto coughs out a surprised, shaky laugh. He’s kind of relieved, to be honest. He’d been frightened by the depth of his own anger and the lengths he’d go to protect his own when fighting with the small witch, had shocked himself by the amount of power he’d been able to channel. Part of him had been worried that Kuroo would be too. But he should have known better. This is Kuroo.

“So, are you still planning to kill my best friend, or are we done here?” the blonde witch snaps suddenly, as if he’s been waiting to butt in for a while now. He sees Akaashi poke at the witch’s side in warning. 

“Uh - “ Koutarou starts, uncertain about how to respond to that. He thought the fact that he’d relinquished his sword to the pocket realm said enough. That and the fact that they’re all just sitting around in the midst of the destruction to Akaashi’s store like the blonde witch didn’t just attack him out of nowhere and they hadn’t just had it out worse than any in sparring session Koutarou has ever had. The competitive side of him is still kind of curious about how things would have turned out if they’d had free reign to fight to an end. 

“Kenma,” Kuroo whines, drawing out the vowels of the witch’s name. 

There’s a familiarity in his tone that pings at Koutarou’s curiosity. For all that Kuroo flirts shamelessly with anything that breathes, he is surprisingly uninterested in people as a general rule. He is not quick to like people or want to be around others - except Koutarou, of course. That doesn’t stop people from liking him though. Kuroo has a charismatic presence. He’s super smart and clever, more so than most people, and rather than turning them off with his special brand of snark and assholish-ness, people are still drawn to him. But it took a lot for him to want to engage back. Koutarou thinks he’s lucky that they’ve known each other since they were kids. 

“I’m just wondering, because you’ve made enough of a mess as it is,” Kenma adds.

“I have a feeling that if Bokuto-san wanted me dead, then I’d be dead,” Akaashi cuts in, voice even. “And yet here I am.” He shoots Koutarou with a quick glance before looking away again. 

Apparently, the little witch isn’t appeased. He says darkly, “You say that like he did you a favor.”

“As I said, here I am,” Akaashi replies with a small shrug. 

“Listen to shopkeeper-san, Kenma,” Kuroo jumps in. “I think this turned out alright, in the end!” 

“Well, it could have been better,” Akaashi says, cutting him a glance. Koutarou notes with amusement that the expression on his face is one that he is met with himself quite often. It’s lightly fond, mildly cutting, and a lot exasperated.

“Do you just like being an asshole to me?” Kuroo says, frowning at Akaashi.

“Your arm is a burnt mess,” Kenma says flatly. “My power is drained. And now that your friend the witch hunter or witch or whatever the hell he is has broken my familiar bond, the spell for which took me weeks to design, Akaashi and I are defenseless against the entirety of the shadow realm. So sure, Kuro, all’s well that ends well.” 

“Uh - but you’re witches. Don’t you _serve_ the shadow realm?” Koutarou asks, bewildered. He’d felt Kenma’s dark energy, even intermixed with Kuroo’s power, and had gotten a glimpse of Akaashi’s shadow marks on his wrists. 

Instead of looking at Koutarou, Kenma turns to Akaashi. “Him? Really?” 

Strangely, Akaashi is blushing lightly, and, despite himself, Koutarou feels affection warm his chest at the sight. “Stop bullying him, Kenma,” Akaashi says. 

The warm feeling in Koutarou’s chest builds further until it’s near overwhelming, so much so that a smile threatens to break him from the gloom of everything else. Uncomfortable with all he’s feeling, Koutarou runs a hand through his hair and finds that it is, embarrassingly, lifting upwards. 

Kenma scowls, his face shrinking with it and his mouth thinning out into a crooked line. Against his better judgment, Koutarou thinks it’s kind of cute. He looks at Kuroo and sees that his fellow hunter very obviously thinks the witch is cute. Huh. He elbows Kuroo in the side, lifting a brow. 

“Shut up,” Kuroo mutters. In the next moment, he sighs. “Look, I need to report in to my guild.” Kenma and Akaashi look at him warily, but Kuroo powers on. “I won’t mention anything about you. But please don’t run.” 

“Sure,” Kenma says, steepling his fingers and resting his chin on them. “Akaashi and I will wait here in this mess not only for the shadows, but for more witch hunters to come for us. Of course, Kuro.”

“Kenma,” Kuro says, voice going soft and desperate. “I know you trust me. We may not be bonded, but I know you now. And I know you’re in danger. Let me help you.”

“We don’t want your help.”

Hesitantly, Akaashi says, “Kenma.”

“ _I_ don’t want your help,” Kenma amends. He points at Bokuto. “Your friend tried to kill Akaashi.”

“He didn’t,” Akaashi says, reaching to gently lower Kenma’s arm. “He could have. But he really didn’t. He was going to put a truth spell on me. He was just looking for Kuroo-san.” 

“And you’re just defending him because you fucked him last night.”

“Kenma!” Akaashi gasps, turning red in an instant. 

Koutarou, unable to contain himself, yells, “Don’t you talk about Akaashi like that!”

And for some reason, everyone goes quiet. 

Koutarou is frowning, upset - with himself, with Kenma for fighting him and for binding Kuroo, with Kuroo for going missing but being here this whole time apparently making nice with witches, and with Akaashi for - for what, he’s not even sure now. All he knows is that everything is awful. Koutarou has tears welling in his eyes again from frustration because he has no clue what to do or what’s happening. There are no shadows to banish with his sword, apparently, and no explanation for the shadow marks on his skin or the tickling, itching feeling of the pull of dark energy inside him.

And now everyone is just staring at him like he said something crazy. “What!” he cries. 

Kuroo just starts laughing. “Oh my god. You are so embarrassing!”

“I’m - I’m - “ Koutarou breaks off. Akaashi is just looking at him, the corner of his lip lilting upward, but it’s in the familiar way that his eyes that crinkle a bit like Koutarou has said or done something funny that eases a constriction in his chest. “Akaashi doesn’t think I’m embarrassing! Right?”

Kenma crosses his arms, expression impassive once again. Kuroo is still laughing like a braying hyena. 

And Akaashi - Akaashi has a sad smile on his face, but a smile nonetheless. He says lightly, “No, Bokuto-san. Not at all.”

///

Though Akaashi is an unassuming asshole - not that Tetsurou would ever say that to Bokuto’s face, or Akaashi’s, lest he get stabbed for no reason again - Tetsurou had taken him at his word when he said they’d stick around. 

Before he’d left, Kenma hadn’t snapped at him, or made that cute little scowl, or drawn dark energy at them, so Tetsurou was relatively confident that he’d be able to see them again soon. He probably should also find new friends if this is how everyone treats him. 

Now, they’re headed to the Fukurodani guild base to get Tetsurou’s arm looked at, which is closest to Elixer. He had cast a light glamour over them both to hide their obvious dishevelment from the innocent, unseeing people around them.

Beside him, Bokuto’s hair has deflated again in Akaashi’s absence. His entire form is a slumped, sad thing, even though he still cuts an unfairly large and imposing figure beneath his guild duster coat.

“Bo,” Tetsurou says to get his attention, but though Bokuto tips his head in his direction, he refuses to meet his gaze. “Look, I stepped in front of you. This,” he gesturing to his burned arm, “is not your fault.” 

Bokuto shakes his head. 

“And I wasn’t taking Kenma’s side over yours,” Testurou adds, cluing in on what is probably another big part of the issue. 

Bokuto cuts a look at him before looking away again. It’s quiet for a moment as Testurou lets that settle. 

Way back when they were just kids, Bokuto had been his one friend. People have always instantly liked Bokuto. He is naturally loud and effortlessly friendly with everyone. He has always been welcoming and inclusive, seeing unique characteristics in people and just loving them unequivocally for it. He is also incredibly powerful. 

Bokuto’s mother, Yuuna, was slated to be the next Fukurodani guild leader. Despite how young she was, she was already a legend among shadow hunters for her ace spellcasting work and the magnitude of her power. 

Bokuto himself showed signs of being able to channel just as much as her when he matured. Though he lauded himself constantly for it and sought attention from anyone and everyone to recognize his achievements, he never made anyone feel smaller because of it.

Tetsurou had tried to keep his distance, meaning to become an ace himself through his own hard work, but he’d been drawn to this bright boy, just like everyone else. And for some reason, Bokuto had stuck to him like glue. They were inseparable ever since. 

When Bokuto’s parents died, Tetsurou - and Yamiji and Nekomata - were all Bokuto had left. Tetsurou had then taken more seriously the mantle of best friend like the responsibility it was, yet it was no less cherished. 

Bokuto eventually says, “My power - it hurt you. I just - I didn’t think it could do that. That _I_ could - “

“I told you already, airhead,” Tetsurou breaks in lightly. “I knew what I was doing, and what would happen. You kind of blew my mind by cutting away so quickly, honestly. I hate to give you a bigger head than you already have, but - “

“Why did you do that though?” Bokuto cuts in. 

Tetsurou is quiet again, thinking about how to approach this next. “Because Kenma was just protecting his friend. Or thought he was. And I knew you’d regret it if you hurt him.” 

Bokuto makes a quiet acknowledging sound. 

Tetsurou decides to just bite the bullet then. “Besides, the bond - it was an accident. Kenma didn’t mean to catch me. He...meant to catch a stray cat as a familiar, and I was... _shifted_ at the time. And he didn’t know how to break the bond.”

Tetsurou regrets sharing the truth almost immediately. Bokuto looks struck dumb, and then he bursts into boisterous laughter. Despite it being at his expense, the sound warms Tetsurou’s cold little heart. 

“And you said _I_ was embarrassing!” Bokuto howls.

Tetsurou shoves him with his good hand, but now that Bokuto’s head is lifted, Tetsurou catches sight of something strange on the side of his face. 

When Bokuto’s parents had been killed by a witch, Yamiji, Yuuna’s hunter partner at the time, had been the one to find him in his home. Tetsurou had not been allowed to visit him for weeks as Bokuto had been healed by the guild leaders, who’d taken the orphan under their wing. 

When he finally did get to see his friend again, it was like Bokuto was brand new. There were no traces of his own altercation with the witch. Strangely enough, there were no traces of any past transgressions at all. The burns and smattering of scars from training were gone. 

One particularly prominent scar on Bokuto’s forehead had been from when they were still quite young. Tetsurou’s curiosity had been piqued by a guild leader meeting at Fukurodani after overhearing that not only were shadow creatures running rampant, but presumably non-magic humans were somehow opening portals to the shadow realm and harnessing the realm’s dark energy power for themselves. Such a thing was so taboo and squashed quickly by the light guilds, but after decades and decades without witches, for some reason they were cropping up again. 

Bokuto led the way, using light energy-enhanced jumps to catch onto window sills, while Tetsurou created solid-energy handholds in the building wall to climb higher. But Bokuto miscalculated a jump, missing the next sill. Tetsurou threw out his magic, bright red shooting out to create a solid stepping stone to catch him. But Bokuto slipped on it and knocked his head against it instead, splitting his head open, before smashing into the ground. Tetsurou’s screams had drawn the guild leaders out from their meeting. 

Bokuto had been fine in the end thanks to the guild healer, but afterward carried the scar across his temple as a reminder of their stupidity - and of one of the worst tongues lashings they’d ever received. 

After Bokuto’s parents’ deaths, after the guild leaders funneled him full with enough light energy to heal him from the attack, even that scar had been wiped clean away.

But there it is now, stark along the side of Bokuto’s temple in the light of day - as visible as the shadow marks on his neck and wrists. 

Tetsurou looks at it, dread whirling in his gut. “Bo,” he says slowly.

“Not gonna lie, bro,” Bokuto says, still snickering like an asshole. “I wish I’d seen you in that little containment spell! Why’d it conjure into a birdcage though? That little witch really designed the spell from scratch, huh?”

Tetsurou reaches out to wipe across the scar, feeling it’s ridges beneath his fingers. Bokuto startles at the touch, lifting his own hand to touch the spot. 

“What - “ Tracing the line, recognition creeps across his face. 

Then Bokuto stops in his tracks, reaching down to pull up the right leg of his pants. There’s a burn scar there from an errant light energy attack from a practice match when they were younger. Bokuto shoves his shirt up next, and Tetsurou sees the light line across his abdomen. He’s not sure where it came from, but he watches numbly as his friend checks across his body, presumably looking for places where he’d been injured throughout his career as a hunter. 

Tetsurou watches as scar upon scar is revealed. 

When he’s done with his search, Bokuto’s expression crumples, his eyes wide with something like anger - or terror. 

“I need - I need to talk to Yamiji.” He looks back at Tetsurou, glancing at his injured arm. “Will you be - “

“I’m coming with you,” Tetsurou says immediately. 

Bokuto just nods, like he expected that, and Tetsurou has a brief sense of relief. “We’ll get you healed up at Fukurodani then. Call into Nekoma first,” he says, and hands over his phone. His voice is firm and direct, despite the emotions undoubtedly boiling in him, and Tetsurou is, as always, impressed at the strength and natural leadership ability he sees in his friend. Especially during wrought moments like these. 

As predicted, when the call is picked up, Nekomata is pissed at his radio silence. 

“Some shit went down,” is all Tetsurou says. “But I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

Rather than jumping into a lecture to berate him, however, Nekomata is quiet. Then he says, “Is Bokuto with you?”

The question, while not out of the ordinary, raises the hair on the back of his neck. He keeps his voice light. “Sure is! Guessing you felt the wave of light energy, huh?”

“We did. Is he all right?”

Unease begins to crawl up his spine. Still trying to play it cool, he says, “Now why the hell are you asking about that horned owl bastard when your one true ace and dear mentee is reporting in?” 

“Idiot,” Nekomata says, finally sounding like himself. “Don’t ever miss check in again or I’ll put you on house-call duty.”

Before Tetsurou can say a word of protest, Nekomata hangs up on him. 

Bokuto is watching him when he looks up.

“It’ll be ok, Kou,” Tetsurou manages to say. 

But it’s a hollow promise, and he hears in his own voice an echo of the unease - and dread - clouding Bokuto’s expression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, though there’s a bit more of the backstory here (this felt so abrupt ugh), I know I didn’t provide a ton of context still about some key details about the shadow marks and shadow realm, but it’s coming! In the next chapter. 
> 
> Thank you so much for the lovely - and fun - comments! It’s very encouraging and makes me so excited to keep writing. Hugs! <3
> 
>  **Next time:**  
>  Witches, witches, and more witches.


	7. i put a spell on you, and now you’re mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Witches, witches, and more witches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one:  
> Me: Oh yes. I listened to “The Water” by RY X on repeat when writing the first scene. If you want some feels, or some soothing - yet emotion-driving - yoga beats, RX Y is fire, babes. 
> 
> Another long one! I'm determined to keep this story to eight chapters. I don't know why. <3

When they get to Fukurodani, Tetsurou is wary of leaving Bokuto alone. On the way there, the spark of grim anger he saw in his friend was slowly smothered beneath confusion and gloom. Tetsurou figures his arm can wait thanks to the sheer power behind Bokuto’s stasis spell, and he opts for reporting to the guild leader together. 

Yamiji is on the phone when they walk into his office. He goes silent when he sees them. “It’s Kuroo and Bokuto,” he says finally. It’s quiet for only a moment more before Yamiji grunts in acknowledgment and hangs up.

“What’s up, Yamiji-san,” Tetsurou says into the growing silence. Bokuto is fidgeting beside him. 

“The wave of light energy?” Yamiji asks. 

“Yeah,” Bokuto replies, eyes downcast. He looks like a child who is about to be served detention. 

“Are you all right?” 

Bokuto shrugs sullenly. Tetsurou nudges him. Bokuto elbows him back harder. _Fuck, he’s strong,_ he thinks irritably. 

Before they can devolve into an all-out shoving match, Yamiji clears his throat to interrupt them. “What happened?” He’s looking from Bokuto’s dejected frame to Kuroo’s injured arm. 

“Yamiji, I don’t even know,” Bokuto cries. “Look!” He pulls his sleeves up to show the shadow marks, then tugs on the collar of his shirt collar to expose his neck. 

Yamiji freezes in place, something like horror and, strangely, resignation sifting across his face as he collapses back into his chair. Tetsurou is suddenly very glad he is here with his friend in this moment. 

Bokuto doesn’t seem to notice the change in Yamiji, that the guild leader’s own form has slumped, making him look smaller and more defeated than Kuroo has ever seen him. Instead, Bokuto walks straight to one of the armchairs on their side of the desk and sinks into it, burying his head in his hands. Yamiji glances at Tetsurou, who follows and takes a seat. 

“You know what the marks are,” Tetsurou says casually to prompt him. “Do you know where they came from?”

Bokuto doesn’t lift his head, but Tetsurou sees his shoulders tense. Yamiji is staring down at his desk, as if trying to find words, so Tetsurou leans back in his chair to wait. 

When it’s been quiet for a while, Bokuto peeks up and watches Yamiji’s face. Finally, he slowly straightens in his seat and says, “They showed up when my power lashed out. Not just the marks - scars, new and old ones showed up. Just tell me.”

Yamiji heaves a breath and lets it out slowly, eyes dropping to the desktop. “Years ago, when the shadow realm was overtaking ours, and shadow creatures and witches were overwhelming the light guilds, some of us believed there must have been a source.” He pauses and looks up. “Your mother was the best spellcaster of all of us across the guilds. She led the design of a new spell. A group of us came together to prepare the greatest working of light energy anyone had ever seen.”

“Wait. _You_ cast a spell to make the shadow marks?” Bokuto asks, disbelief written across his face.

Tetsurou wonders if the same sense of dread is filling him too.

“Think about it, Koutarou.” Despite the persuasive tone to his deep voice, Kuroo has never seen Yamiji look so old, so wearied. “A spell that could prevent - or at the very least deter - anyone from ever using dark energy again. Any non-magic wielder who happened to summon a new portal would be touched by a shadow mark and be discouraged from exploring the dark further. With every summoning, with every large dark energy casting, the shadow marks could appear on the wielder - as a warning. To go no further lest you seal your fate to the shadows. We wanted to stop people from going down a dark and corrupt path. With one magnificent working, we could effectively end all desire to even reach for the shadow realm.” He pauses, seemingly losing steam. “That was our intention.”

“But you failed,” Tetsurou says coldly, seeing where this is leading. “It wasn’t a spell. It was a curse - albeit one made from light energy. You know better than any of us that the dark realm enthralls. It digs into a person, enticing them to draw more and more power. It’s a compulsion.” 

Bokuto’s eyes are dark with grief as he looks from Tetsurou to Yamiji. “You tied them to dark energy, the witches, and marked them forever as a thing of shadows,” he says, swallowing. He shakes his head. “You weren’t saving them. You were damning them,” he finishes. He looks down at his own wrists, rubbing at the shadow marks embedded there. “I always thought they did this to themselves. Knew the cost of dealing in shadows. But it was us all this time? The light guilds?”

“We were desperate,” Yamiji says quietly. “Innocent people were disappearing, dying - and dying horrible, gruesome deaths as victims of shadow creatures or as witches’ sacrifices for more power. You don’t remember, probably never knew the truth of what it was like back then. We wanted to protect you.” His glance encompasses Tetsurou and Bokuto both. 

“But how did I get these? I’ve never - you know I’ve never touched the dark.”

Tetsurou feels fury building inside him - at the unfairness of what those marks on Bokuto’s wrists and neck must mean - fury for Bokuto, but also for the other witches. “The curse didn’t end with the affected witch.”

Yamiji swipes a hand over his face as he looks at Bokuto. “Your mother was the most gifted wielder I have ever known. Yuuna had been working on the spell design for months by the time the light guilds were becoming overrun by the shadows invading our realm. Originally, it was meant to stop a specific witch, but when she brought it forward, the rest of us - Nekomata, Irihata, Ukai, and I - we all layered our power over hers to blanket the rest, as far as we could reach among us. We wove in natural magic and thought we were tying the shadow mark spell to the unnatural shadow portals and their summoners. Righting the way of this realm by rejecting all hints of shadows. But the spell invariably entwined with the dark energy within the caster’s blood rather than just the channel between them and the shadow realm.” 

He pauses, and he looks regretfully at Bokuto, who just stares back, a confused expression stealing across his face. “I don’t - but how did I - “

Tetsurou, whose specialty is spellcasting, sees the thread and warily speaks up. “The curse has a debt component.”

“What?” Bokuto asks, swiveling his head from Tetsurou and back to Yamiji. “Like an energy backlash? But what’s the debt?”

Yamiji sighs. “That was an unforeseen consequence. The spell was crafted to be reactionary. If someone summoned a portal to open themselves to the shadow realm for the first time, the spell would be invoked and a shadow mark imprinted. If they used dark energy at a certain level, additional marks struck the skin. Even the power-hungry fear death and succumbing to the shadows. Seeing evidence of one’s fate in the shadow marks - the warning in it - was Yunna’s deterrent against forging a deeper connection with the dark.” He pauses. “But, because the spell became tied with the caster’s blood, if the witch died, then - “

“The shadow realm required a debt to be paid under the spell’s own construct,” Tetsurou says solemnly, picking up where Yamiji trails off. “The marks transferred to their progeny.”

Bokuto shakes his head vigorously. “But no one in my line was ever a witch! No one could have passed these marks on to me. Mom was a hunter! And Dad didn’t have any ability at all, so - “ Bokuto cuts himself off. 

Tetsurou can’t bring himself to look at him, but he knows in his own bones the devastation of the realization his friend must have come to. 

“Your father was - Eizō was a good man, Koutarou,” Yamiji says haltingly. “Your mother came from a long line of light energy wielders. It’s why Eizō took her family name. But he was brought into a world that was not his own, in which his beloved wife and child were bastions of a power he would never share. It was a world he would never truly be a part of.”

“Unless he could channel dark energy,” Bokuto finishes, voice empty. 

“Yuuna came to me,” Yamiji says, leaning over the desk on his forearms as if to get closer to Bokuto. “She feared that Eizō had opened himself to the shadow realm. When she confronted him, we thought that was the end of it. For a while it was. Then more witches surfaced - out in the open - along with more shadow creatures. We didn’t believe he was the source, but it became clear that he was close enough to it that Yuuna began creating this spell to prevent him from making things worse - to save him. The guilds were rallying to purge the witches, a price deemed worthy to save the innocent. The spell was supposed to be a way to save lives - both wielders in light _and_ shadow.” 

“The witch - the witch who killed them, Yamiji. My parents - “ Bokuto says desperately, voice wavering. 

It’s quiet for a moment, and Tetsurou reaches his hand out to place it on the back of Bokuto’s neck, as firm and reassuring as he can be to let him know that he’s here, that he would always be here.

“Koutarou,” Yamiji says softly. 

“Tell me!” Bokuto yells, jumping up and dislodging Tetsurou’s hold. “Just tell me the fucking truth!”

“We - Nekomata, Irihata, Ukai, and I - we had helped to prepare and craft the bones of the spell in advance. Yuuna was to be the one to invoke it. She wanted to put Eizō at its center on the night it was to be cast, and I was to take you out of the house. We still hoped we could bring Eizō back from the brink, keep it quiet from our guilds to protect him.” His voice drops to a gravelly whisper. “But Eizō was - he was so far gone by then, corrupt with a deep channel to the shadow realm, and you were asleep just upstairs. Yuuna used the prepared spell on him before I got there. He lashed out, and - “ 

“No.” Bokuto backs away from the desk, tripping on the armchair he’d vacated moments ago. “That isn’t - he wasn’t - “

Yamiji stands and makes as if to walk around the desk, but Bokuto holds up a shaking hand glowing with gold light to warn him off.

Tetsurou stands to put another barrier between Yamiji and Bokuto. 

Yamiji halts in place, staring pleadingly at Bokuto past him. “She was gone - they both were gone by the time I got there. And you - Koutarou, I realized that the spell had repercussions when I found you.”

“What did you do to me.”

Yamiji swallows with difficulty. “When I got upstairs, you were on the ground, convulsing as your father’s shadow marks were branded into your skin,” his voice breaks, and he shakes his head, expression becoming resolute. “I didn’t want you to go the way of your father. We - _I_ \- had done this to you. So I took you to Fukurodani and called the other hunters who had created the spell with me. We used the strongest illusion spells we knew to create an impenetrable glamour to hide your marks. We did everything in our power to block your new link to the shadow realm.”

“You hid him away to cover up what you did,” Tetsurou spits out. He can hear Bokuto heaving with sobs behind him, but all he can do is stare, horrified and furious in equal measure. 

Tetsurou remembers learning that Bokuto’s parents had died - that they’d been killed by a witch. He’d barely heard that Bokuto was being healed at Fukurodani before he’d run out of the house for his bike. But he hadn’t been allowed to see his best friend, not for weeks. Nekomata had sat him down, had explained that Bokuto needed to be healed, that it would take some time, and no one could see him until he was in the clear. 

But even for the worst shadow creature injuries, visitors had always been permitted before. Bokuto’s mom has been laid up for a month after one hunt gone wrong with a creature, but they’d been allowed into the healing ward. He hadn’t questioned it when he’d been kept from Bokuto, but now he wishes he had done more. 

“We did it to save you,” Yamiji says firmly. “If you didn’t know about your access to the shadow realm, you’d never consider using dark energy. You already were just like your mother then, with a deep well of light energy, that we were sure you would never even be tempted. But no one had ever yielded both light and dark energy before. The glamour was a precaution.” He pauses, before saying again, “I did it to save you, Koutarou. You’re like a son to me. I - “

 _“Don’t you fucking dare,”_ Bokuto chokes out, voice heavy with tears. His body has begun to glow, and he has one hand clutched to his chest like he’s willing it not to break. 

Tetsurou feels like his own is breaking for him instead. “Why didn’t you just break the curse?” he asks, but he has a feeling he already knows the answer. 

Yamiji stares a moment longer at Bokuto before he leans against the desk, shaking his head. “Yuuna was the primary caster. The breadth of that spell, the reactionary component was tied to her and her will. She had wanted to protect you from the shadows above all else, Koutarou - and others who were innocent of the shadow realm’s reach. We think she reinforced that aspect of the spell when she confronted Eizō that night. When she died, she took with her our chance of breaking it.”

“And the witch purge,” Tetsurou says, realization hitting him like a blow to the head. “The light guilds - they didn’t wipe the witches out.” 

“No,” Yamiji replies, voice heavy with guilt. “Hunters had started confronting witches that were deep in the shadow realm’s thrall, but we had barely begun fighting back. It soon became clear that the truly powerful witches were accidentally killing themselves off by channeling too much dark energy and succumbing to the shadow realm. We believe that most others took heed of the shadow marks as intended enough to stop using dark energy and go underground. Those of us who helped create the spell - once you were healed - we ensured no other witches were killed by shadow hunter hands lest their children inherit the burden of their parents’ shadow marks.”

Yamiji bows his head, silent after that as if the weight of his guilt has stifled him. 

Tetsurou thinks of Kenma, of Akaashi, of the marks they carefully hide and the desperate way they live, running from shadow and light both. 

He looks at Bokuto, a brilliant, shining figure of gold with defeat and sorrow written along every line of his body, his downcast face wet with tears. 

And Tetsurou wonders when life became so goddamn complicated. 

///

The smart thing to do would be to run. In a game, when faced with a boss too high a rank to defeat, you retreat. Then you return later with reinforcements and relics and more knowledge of the weak spots to target. 

But he and Akaashi have no such reinforcements. They have a few rare and trusted contacts, but in the end, what they have - all they have - is each other. 

Plus, there seem to be too many boss-level challenges ahead to even begin figuring out a strategy to approach them. He’d tried one way, through the familiar bond, and that had backfired spectacularly. Now, they have inadvertently opened themselves up to risk in a way they never have before. 

And Kenma is just so, so tired. He is sprawled on the ground against the shop’s counter, the only spot clear of debris thanks to Akaashi’s protective charm, which was apparently gifted by the very hunter who had or maybe had not - _who even knows now?_ \- tried to attack him.

Nearby, Akaashi is weaving small spells to right the shelves and patch up cracks in the brick wall where Kenma had shackled the gold witch hunter. 

Kenma could be helping, but he’s tired. He can’t even find the energy to get his portable game right now.

“What are you thinking about, Kenma?” Akaashi asks when he deigns to take a break. 

Kenma looks up at where Akaashi looms over him, leaning against the counter and with his hands folded together behind his back. “How tired I am. If Kuro might fall for a second containment trap. If you really think fucking that witch hunter was worth all this.”

Akaashi cracks a small smile. “You are thinking none of those things.” He pauses. “Except for the first one.” He draws one hand from behind his back to reveal Kenma’s game. “Here. It was in your bag in the back room.”

Kenma reaches up, but it’s too high up. His hand flops limply back down beside him, which gets a real, audible laugh out of Akaashi. Kenma’s eyes trail the game as it is placed before his nose on the ground. 

“Thank you for coming for me,” Akaashi says softly then. He has settled into a squat, elbows resting on his knees as he dips his head down so Kenma can see his face. 

“You can go away now, please,” Kenma replies, but his voice is just as soft as he reaches tentatively for the console. Akaashi is still smiling his little smile when he straightens and gets back to cleaning. 

It isn’t the first time - and it won’t be the last - that Kenma will go out of his way to save his friend. It’s built into his DNA at this point to protect Akaashi. 

Kenma owes him. 

Akaashi says he doesn’t, that that isn’t how it works between them. Kenma agrees only to appease him, but inside, wracked with ever-present guilt down to his bones, he knows that this mess they’re in his own fault. 

Even when they were very young, Kenma had felt a kinship with Akaashi. And it wasn’t in their shared introvert tendencies, but more so in a shared strength and sense of disdain when others might push them down. 

They were neighbors from the start and constantly thrown together by their parents in hopes that they might help one another become more sociable. But to their parents’ chagrin, once they had each other, they found that they needed no one else. 

Kenma often wondered what drew his own parents to the Akaashis. They were not terribly sociable themselves, so that they constantly sought to interact with the Akaashis was always mildly suspect, even to his younger self. But soon he learned why. 

The first time he channeled dark energy, he’d been four. His parents had kept him up later in the night. He’d been getting comfortable with writing by then, and soon his lessons at home were not just about characters and words, but runes and sigils. 

He hadn’t known what the etchings would do altogether, only that, under their proud gazes and with a prick of blood from his finger, he completed that night’s lesson and came away with a faint tug in his chest that never went away. 

“We’ll have more than enough power now to encourage your supervisor to recognize you,” his mother said. 

His father just leaned back into the couch, expression warm and pleased as he beckoned to Kenma to sit next to him. The hand he rested on Kenma’s head was heavy and comforting, and Kenma held onto that feeling for years before he realized what he had done. And what he was helping his parents to do in all that time. 

If it had been that alone, Kenma may have gotten over it. But it was not a self-contained affair among the Kozumes. 

When they brought in the Akaashis, the sticky feeling of guilt and fear that Kenma felt about his own actions blossomed into an ugly, overwhelming thing within him. 

He was scared that his best friend would become a part of this secret that he did his best to hide, and it sickened him to think that Keiji - smart, sharp, friendly, gentle, reliable Keiji - might be dragged into this darkness with him. 

And for that, Kenma could never forgive his parents. For that, and many other reasons, Kenma could never forgive himself. 

But Akaashi’s parents never exposed Keiji to the shadow realm, and Kenma was determined to ensure they, and his own parents, never would. 

He had an online presence by then, had seen mutterings on forums and deep sites that spoke of shadow creatures and a corruption that not everyone could see. It also opened up to him the reverse - a magical world that he realized was not the one he himself belonged to, but one of light. There, people didn’t focus their energy on selfishness and greed, but on protection, good health, and kindness. Theirs was a natural, inherited power of light, the opposite side of the coin to Kenma’s.

And he learned quickly that that world, the good one, was not open to someone like him. 

“Remember when my first shadow mark appeared?” Kenma says. 

Akaashi looks over from where he's begun mixing new products. Kenma wonders if he’s being a little optimistic about how long they can actually settle here after everything with the hunters. 

“I thought your family was secretly yakuza,” Akaashi says. His eyes are amused, despite everything. “And that you were a baby yakuza member at seven years old. Bold enough to get a little neck tattoo.” 

“Well, you said you wanted to join if I was.”

“I also was seven.”

Kenma looks away so he doesn’t laugh. 

He thinks Akaashi can tell, because he says next, “I thought it would only be fair, since your family was helping mine rise to success.”

Kenma raises an eyebrow at him when he looks back. “So, logically, you should throw in with us?”

Akaashi’s smile spreads from his eyes to his lips. “No, just you,” he says. 

Kenma looks away again. Akaashi is still as he waits for more, and when nothing else is forthcoming, he gets back to work. 

The marks were a sign that the Kozumes and Akaashis took seriously. Kenma’s parents had a larger network of like-minded wielders who saw similar markings appear with each high-level spell crafted. And some even who had died from suspected overuse of dark energy. 

When their marks appeared and continued to spread with each new spell worked with the Kozumes, Akaashi’s parents finally cut themselves off from dark energy entirely, much to the Kozumes’ disdain. 

“The light guilds,” Kenma’s father had hissed late one night. Kenma had hidden beneath his comforter when he cast the small spell to perk his hearing. “They must have done this.”

“We need to strike now before the others are overcome by their cowardice as well,” his mother replied coldly. “We may not have the chance again.”

“We risk succumbing to the shadow realm if we confront them directly. The level of power we’d need would be - “

“Then we summon something to confront them for us.”

That day, through his alias, Kenma sent a message he had painstakingly drafted to his light guild contact, warning them of his parents’ rough plan. He’d been afraid of what they would pull from the shadow realm. But he’d also been afraid of the part he might be made to play to help them.

Then the witch hunters came. 

Kenma was upstairs, and he’d quickly retreated beneath his bed when he felt the illusion spell blanket his home. His parents started screaming. He saw the flashes of colorful light from the crack beneath his door, the deep orange of his mother’s energy and a cobalt blue for his father’s mixed with lilac and maroon. Next he heard the roars of the tsuchigumo, the tiger and spider hybrid monstrosity of a shadow creature his parents spelled to this realm to guard them. He scooted as far back against the wall as he could. He couldn’t tell if he was trembling from his fear or if the house shook from the battle within it. 

It eventually went quiet. 

Between one breath and the next in the sudden silence, he felt a sharp, searing sensation around his neck. He didn’t even have time to scream before he blacked out from the pain. 

Later, he smelled the smoke before he had fully regained consciousness. When he managed to crawl out from under his bed to swing his bedroom door open, the smoke had already begun to fill the hallway. He raced back to his window, and he was just in time to see two figures in duster coats leave the Akaashi home. He was numb with terror when he saw the bright lick of flames through the downstairs window and the light switch flicker on in Akaashi’s room across from his. 

He dared to wait until the figures disappeared before using a dark energy spell to conjure a ladder to throw out the window. 

The pain in his neck was so blinding that he fell halfway down from the second story into the grass. He only was able to focus again when he heard Akaashi screaming down to him, the light in his bedroom illuminating the smoke billowing behind him. 

“Kenma! Are you ok? Kenma!” 

Kenma had looked up through his tears at Akaashi, clutching at his throat. It took a few tries before he could muster up enough strength to push himself up to a seat and speak. “Jump,” he called to Akaashi. “You have to jump! I’ll catch you!”

Sirens were beginning to blare a distance away as the night lit up around them with flames. 

Akaashi was still clutching the windowsill. 

“Keiji!” Kenma yelled. 

“I can’t!” Akaashi screamed. “My parents are still in here!” And then he ducked away. 

Kenma used a dark spell then, one that burned a thick line into his neck. He powered through the foreign pain of it and the depth of the dark tug in his chest as he ran through the still-open door of Akaashi’s house. Another small spell helped him see through the smoke past the bubble of protection and impenetrability that kept him safe from the flames. Racing around the two familiar figures on the ground without looking at them, he finally found Akaashi on his hands and knees by the staircase, his shirt pulled up over his mouth and nose, coughing and eyes blinded with tears from the smoke. Kenma grabbed him from under his arms and dragged him out of his burning home. 

Covered in soot, barefoot, and in their pajamas, they’d held hands as they ran. Kenma still remembers the white puffs of air in front of his face in the chilly night, the slap of their feet on the asphalt, the smell of smoke they carried in their clothes and their hair. 

He led them quickly away - no specific place in mind, but just away out of precaution that another shadow creature may have been spelled nearby as a trap. His speed though was mostly borne out of fear that the light guild witch hunters might return to finish their work, even against children. 

Akaashi followed without a word, blind with trust, his palm warm with life against Kenma’s. 

Kenma didn’t like to think about what it meant that Akaashi’s shadow marks didn’t appear until they were already a few blocks away. Akaashi just froze suddenly in place, his hand slipping from Kenma’s. Rigid by the onslaught of pain, he had pulled his arms close to his chest before collapsing, shaking like he was having a seizure.

And in the dark, Kenma knelt next to him, watching in the faint moonlight with Akaashi’s screams hovering in the air as each mark appeared there on his best friend’s wrists, one after another after another until they looked like shackles. 

.

By the time Kenma feels even remotely like talking again, let alone standing up from the ground by the counter, it’s already dark out. His shoulders are draped with a heavy blue cardigan, there’s a takeout bag beside him, and Akaashi is nowhere to be seen. 

Kenma puts down his game - the battery had been depleted - and sniffs at the bag hesitantly. His mouth waters, and he’s suddenly ravenous. 

When he finishes eating, he wanders to the back room, where he finds Akaashi putting the finishing touches on the curse-breaking circle Kenma had started this morning. 

He thinks briefly about Kuro leaning against the wall smiling down at him saying, _I like you,_ and feels a sharp stab of loss in the back of his mind before he forcibly pushes it away. “You’ve been busy,” he says. 

Akaashi dusts his hands off, chalk dust sprinkling down to the ground. “I can’t seem to sit still,” he replies, eyes darting around the circle.

The doorbell rings then, so Kenma follows Akaashi back toward the front of the shop. 

Kenma leans against one of the now-standing wooden aisle shelves as Akaashi lets in his client, and the client’s friend, apparently. 

“Kodzuken-san!” exclaims the first boy who enters. His bright orange hair and vibrant smile seem to perfectly match his energy. Kenma wonders if he’s a light energy wielder, but dismisses the thought considering the guilds have their own curse-breakers. 

Akaashi coughs to cover a laugh, locking up behind a tall and rather stoic black-haired boy. “I’m Akaashi Keiji. Welcome to Elixir.” He opens a hand toward Kenma. “This is Kodzuken.”

“I’m Hinata Shouyou! That’s Kageyama. Tobio.” He glances over his shoulder and jabs an elbow into his friend. “Say ‘hi,’ Kageyama.”

“Hi.”

“What happened here?” Hinata asks, gazing around with wide eyes. The shop is mostly in working order, but the shelves are mostly bare. “Do you need help cleaning up?”

Akaashi’s expression is even, but it’s mildly entertained when he throws a glance back at Kenma. “We’ll be all right. We had...a break in earlier today.” 

“Someone really didn’t like your products,” Kageyama says, looking at the leftover pile of broken glass and debris as if unimpressed. 

“Kageyama!” 

Ever a saint with his patience, Akaashi says, “You can follow Kodzuken into the next room. I’ll prepare some tea.” 

Kenma peers at the two boys for another moment before leading the way to the back without a word. Hinata oohs and ahhs at the dummy shelf wall, trying out the sliding mechanism with his own hands, and then he darts around the back room, eying the runes and sigils on the walls and the circle on the wooden floors. 

“Is this a cult?” Kageyama asks, eying the lit candles around the room. “Because if it is, we’re leaving.”

“You said you wouldn’t say a word if I let you come,” Hinata hisses at him. “But you’ve been saying a lot of them!”

“This isn’t a cult,” Kenma says dryly. “If it was, we’d be trying to curse you, not lift your friend’s curse.” He’s eyeing Hinata’s bandaged arm that positively exudes dark energy. “You’re definitely cursed. What did you touch?”

“What hasn’t he touched?” Kageyama mutters. 

Hinata shoots him a glare before turning to Kenma, excitement pure and simple shining across his face as if Kenma hadn’t just diagnosed him as cursed. “Nothing out of the ordinary! We work at the bakery nearby! I had to trade my shifts when my hand started turning black. I couldn’t move it anymore anyway.”

“Unwrap that,” Kenma orders. Hinata smiles in response like it’s the kindest thing he’s heard all day, and is quick to comply. Kenma is mildly unnerved. 

Beneath the bandages, it’s immediately clear why Yachi had sent Hinata. Apart from the aura of dark energy radiating from it, Hinata’s hand has become a blackened claw, the nails long and sharp, the skin charred and hard - all the way up to the elbow.

“Scary, huh?” Hinata says, watching Kenma’s face as Kenma looks at it from every angle without touching it. “It’s been giving me nightmares.” 

Something about that pings Kenma’s senses, and he files it away as Akaashi joins them with a tray of forget-me tea. For non-magic wielders, they always make sure that no hint of their curse-breaking can be called to memory later, just the cost of a vague service rendered. 

“No, thank you,” Kageyama says. Nothing about his tone or expression are rude, but Kenma watches Akaashi eye him carefully. “I don’t take drinks from strangers with secret rooms who take my friend’s money.”

“Fair enough,” Akaashi says easily, and Kenma watches as he sketches a light sigil behind his back before nudging it in Kageyama’s direction. He turns next to Hinata with the tray. 

“I could use tea,” Hinata says with another bright smile. “Yum, this is good! Does tea stop the itching?” 

“It itches?” Kenma asks, tilting his head at the hand. Strangely, the clawed ends seem to follow his movement. 

“Yeah, at my fingertips. But maybe that’s normal. I can feel it in my normal hand too though, so maybe it’s just me.” He wiggles his good fingers experimentally.

Kenma glances at Akaashi, who is frowning. 

“How long does curse-breaking take?” Kageyama asks. 

Kenma shrugs, appreciative of the boy’s straightforward nature. “Not long. You, stand in the center of the circle,” he says, pointing.

Hinata doesn’t have to run to the spot, but for some reason he does, leaping onto the central rune with excitement. “Do I need to chant something?” 

Akaashi is looking at him fondly when he says, “No, but you do need to be quiet.”

“This isn’t going to work,” Kageyama says, looking between Akaashi and Kenma, “for a few reasons. Mainly because Hinata can’t keep quiet.” 

“Bakageyama! Yes I can!” Hinata protests. 

Kenma doesn’t know why he is not more annoyed right now. He’s not as exhausted as he felt this morning after spending most of the day disconnecting. He supposes it's because, generally, non-magic wielders tend to be creeped out by the summoning circle and the ritual, whereas these two seem to be taking it in stride as much as non-magic wielders can. 

“Starting now, we’ll need quiet, please,” Akaashi says, taking a seat on the ground next to his tea tray with his palms face up on his knees. Kageyama eyes him warily before following suit just outside the circle. 

In a whisper, Hinata says, “Wait, me too? Do I sit like that?”

“Just stand there. Quietly,” Kenma says. 

Hinata nods, swinging his arms as if incapable of holding still. It won’t affect the spell, so Kenma ignores it. 

He pricks his finger, ignoring Kageyama’s seemingly ever-present frown, and traces the keystone rune in the outside circle with his blood. It’s a light casting that barely pulls on the marks on his neck, but it still requires concentration. 

First around the outer circle, the runes begin to light up one after another, each line beginning to glow red, round and round, until the rune Hinata stands on glows brighter still. He makes a surprised noise and jumps, but then settles when nothing happens. 

It’s the fact that nothing happens that makes Kenma uneasy. Usually dark energy would begin to spill from the cursed person within the circle, draining into the circle itself to be cleansed away. Instead, the circle continues to glow, and the silence in the room stretches on. 

Kenma hears Kageyama shifting restlessly, feels a tense aura building from Akaashi, and watches Hinata looking curiously at each lit rune as he twirls slowly in place. 

“Stay where you,” Kenma tells Hinata. He funnels a little more power forward, feels the small connection between him and Hinata through the circle and his own power, and searches a little deeper, tracing the source of the curse in Hinata’s body. 

“Ow!” Hinata cries when his hand constricts into a fist with a series of loud cracks. The stiff, black fingers ending in long nails then stretch out, as if testing their own mobility despite Hinata’s frightened expression and small sounds of pain. “Kageyama?” Hinata says quietly, fear in his voice. 

Kageyama jumps to his feet, but when Kenma holds a hand out at him, he doesn't step into the circle.

“Kenma,” Akaashi says quietly, reaching out toward the center of the circle. Kenma nods to him. Akaashi sketches a quick stasis spell and pushes it forward until it wraps around Hinata’s arm to the elbow. 

The clawed hand continues to twitch and curl within the spell, but Hinata is no longer crying out. 

“What’s happening?” Hinata says, voice thickening with tears. 

“It’s more than a curse,” Kenma says. “It’s a wound that has festered for too long. Did you touch any creatures or - “

“He was bitten,” Kagayama cuts in, his voice tight with tension as he stares at Hinata. “Last week.”

“Oh, yeah,” Hinata says, brightening. “There was a dog near the bakery. I tried to give her snacks!” 

“And it bit you on your hand?” Akaashi asks to confirm. 

“Well, yeah. But it was barely a nip. I guess she doesn’t like fish sausages. She got distracted and ran off.” He shines a quick smile at Kageyama through the leftover tears in his eyes from the pain. “Thanks, Yamayama. I forgot!” 

Kageyama huffs through his nose, crossing his arms. “That’s what you get for feeding all the strays.”

“She looked _hungry,_ ” Hinata says, unoffended.

Akaashi turns to Kenma. “A hellhound?”

Kenma shrugs. “Maybe. I’ve had a bunch of them wandering into my traps, but they target specific people. They don’t just attack innocents at random like other creatures.” 

He’s worried though that the wound festered into this blackened thing. Typically, a shadow creature’s dark energy venom is passed on through direct contact, like a bite or a scratch, and the victim dies a painful death as the venom seeps into the bloodstream. This, though, is something that he and Akaashi have never seen before. 

“It didn’t look like a hellhound,” Hinata says pensively, one hand cradling his chin. “Are those the big strays around the city? The ones with the greenish black fur? This one was little.” 

Kenma feels the unease growing in him, and glances at Akaashi who frowns back at Hinata. Akaashi says, “You’ve seen other creatures like that? You said they looked green?”

“Sure,” Hinata replies. “Only over the last month or so. I’ve never seen dogs like that before. I mean, they’re not _green_ green. They’re mostly black. But their fur looks green when it catches the light.” He turns to Kageyama. “Is that a city thing? The hellhounds? Like rats?” He turns back to Akaashi. “I only moved here a few months ago.” 

Kenma knows some non-wielders can be particularly sensitive to light and dark energy, but he’s never heard of one who was able to see shadow creatures as they were. Though they preyed on wielders and non-wielders alike, the latter couldn’t see the creatures themselves, let alone have a chance of fighting back against a shadow. 

Kageyama shrugs. “I’ve never seen one,” he says. 

“You saw Nightcrawler though,” Hinata corrects. “When she bit me. The others are just bigger.” 

Kageyama shakes his head. “I didn’t see it.” 

“Yes you did! She was right there in front of the store! You told me not to feed her!” 

“I tell you not to feed strays, period,” Kageyama replies. 

“You named it?” Kenma asks. 

“Sure,” Hinata says. “She came back too! But she didn’t bite me again. Just walked by. Maybe she lives near the bakery.”

Akaashi is rubbing his temples. “Maybe we should call Kuroo and Bokuto,” he says quietly.

Kenma scowls. “No.” 

“Who’re they?” Hinata asks.

“No one,” Kenma replies. “Look, we’ll talk about your pets later. Let’s get rid of that first.” 

“Yes please,” Hinata says brightly. He holds out his blackened claw of a hand as if in offering, apparently used to the way it moves unnaturally on its own.

Kenma reaches out a hand, and Akaashi grips it to lend his power. They begin channeling, Kenma using his free hand to sketch additional cleansing runes in the air, bridging the new ones to the circle through the tie of his own blood. 

The circle brightens once, and then Hinata makes a sound and drops to his knees, gripping his upper arm above where the claw is opening and closing as if in protest. The hand begins to shake, yellow and blue-green light glowing beneath the cracks in its charred surface, before the blackened outer layer begins to slough off in graying flakes, like spent charcoal turning to ash. Hinata watches with wide brown eyes as smoke rises from his limb, the black peeling away in layers to leave a yellow and blue-green glow beneath it and over what looks like unblemished skin. 

Within moments, his hand looks good as new. Kenma slowly withdraws his and Akaashi’s power. With it comes the stasis spell. Hinata touches his own hand, making an awed noise. 

Kageyama is staring wide-eyed from Hinata and his healed arm, the diminishing light of the circle, and Akaashi and Kenma. 

“Magic! You guys are magic?” Hinata exclaims excitedly. 

When the light fades from the circle, something on Hinata’s arm catches Kenma’s eye. He stalks forward and flips Hinata’s hand. He stares at his wrist, where two thick dark lines look tattooed into Hinata’s skin. “What are these?” he asks, afraid that he already knows the answer. Akaashi steps up beside him, staring down at the lines. 

“Oh, that’s where Nightcrawler bit me. She just scraped it. I wasn’t worried because she didn’t really draw much blood. These don’t look like scars though.” Kageyama comes up to stand behind him, peering over his head to look at the marks. 

“They’re shadow marks,” Akaashi says heavily, voice underscored with sadness. “They’re evidence of your connection to the shadow realm.” 

Hinata looks at him quietly for a moment. “Is that bad? It - it doesn’t sound good.”

“Something that scars you like that can’t be good, dumbass,” Kageyama says, but the quiet tone to his voice belies his harsh address. 

“You’ll be ok,” Akaashi says reassuringly to both of them. “But Kenma and I will look into this.” He turns to Kenma. 

After all these years together, Kenma can almost read his mind. “Fine, but I don’t have his number,” Kenma says. “I know his patrol route. At least as a cat, anyway.” 

Akaashi nods in response. “If Bokuto comes by, I’ll talk to him.” 

“Are your friends magic too?” Hinata asks, looking up at them both with shining eyes. 

Kenma eyes him warily before turning to Akaashi again. “The tea and the rune,” he says in reminder. 

“I’ll clear it,” Akaashi replies. 

He takes a breath, before making an X shape with his arms and slicing sideways to break the forget-me spell on Hinata and the memory spell on Kageyama so they don’t forget the events of the night. 

Akaashi turns back to Hinata. “We got rid of the infection on your arm,” he says, “but the shadow marks on your wrist are something we’d like to keep an eye on, just to make sure you’re safe. Is that ok?” 

Hinata’s expression is wary, but his eyes are full of gratitude as he waves his now-cleansed hand in dismissal. “Sure! We’re neighbors, anyway!” he says. “Come by the bakery for cake and pie some time!” 

Kenma feels a small smile pulling at his lips despite himself. “Do you have apple pie?” 

Hinata’s grin is blinding. “I’ll make a fresh one just for you, Kodzuken-san!” 

“Your pie crusts are terrible,” Kageyama says, but he turns his gaze to Kenma. “I’ll help him, I guess.” 

Kenma doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he shrugs. It seems like enough of a response for Kageyama, who turns back to Hinata to pull on his hand so he can look at the marks again. 

“You can just call me Kenma,” he says. 

“Kenma!” Hinata echoes. 

Kenma just resolutely looks away to hide his blush when Akaashi glances at him, eyes bright with amusement. 

///

Koutarou doesn’t quite remember leaving Yamiji’s office. He’d been so upset, had felt so broken and listless, that he felt his power - called up in anger and a feeling of betrayal, again - drain right out of him. 

Kuroo had taken him by the elbow and led him out to the healing ward, where Komi had taken one look at him and offered a soothing draught without even making a wisecrack first. But Koutarou didn’t want to be drugged out of his mood. He wanted to wallow in it, roll around in it, and just sleep for days. He’d waved Komi over to Kuroo instead. Just looking at his friend’s arm was enough to send him spiraling deeper. 

Laying down on one of the cots, he curled onto his side and watched as Komi got to work on Kuroo’s arm. The sound of their quiet voices and the light glow of Komi’s light blue power were soothing around him. 

He only comes to when Kuroo pokes him in the shoulder repeatedly like an asshole. “Hey, airhead,” he says, but his voice is soft as he peers down at him. His arm is bandaged while the healing spell settles. “You gonna sleep here?”

Koutarou grips the hand offered to him and lets himself be pulled up to a seat on the cot. Komi is looking at him out of the corner of his eye with concern written across his face, despite the fact that Koutarou is sure the shadow marks on his neck are at least partially visible where his shirt collar is unbuttoned.

He settles on just ignoring the looks in his direction. He doesn’t even know what he’d say to anyone right now about the marks, let alone everything else about himself, his entire life, that is founded on lies. 

“I wanna get out of here,” he mutters. 

Kuroo is still holding his hand, so he uses it to tug Koutarou up to a full stand. 

When they head out, Kuroo is surprisingly quiet as Koutarou walks with his head down. Koutarou isn’t sure where they’re going as he puts one foot in front of the other. He just knows he doesn’t want to be at Fukurodani. He doesn’t want to go home because it reminds him of Akaashi now, and thinking about Akaashi makes him feel sick with guilt. It makes him think about how Akaashi had looked at him when crumpled on the ground behind his mother’s charm’s protective shield. 

“Bo,” Kuroo finally says, stopping him with a hand on his arm. “Tell me what you need.” 

Koutarou pulls his arm lightly away to run his hands through his limp hair and over his face before he drops them to his sides. “I don’t know.” He sighs, catching a glimpse of Kuroo’s worried expression. “I think I just need to walk it off,” he says. “I’m - I’m just gonna do some rounds and then - then I’ll head home.” 

“I’m coming with you.”

“No,” Koutarou says firmly. He nods at Kuroo’s arm. “That healing spell is gonna hit you any minute. You need to go home and sleep it off.” 

“I’m not letting you - “

“Kuroo, I’m just gonna walk around for a bit and then go home, all right? I don’t need you to babysit me.” 

Kuroo frowns, eyes searching his. “It’s not babysitting. I’m allowed to worry about you. I’m allowed to want to be here with you. You’re my best friend. ” 

Koutarou looks away, thinking suddenly of when he’d first been brought to Fukurodani after his parents died. He’d been dazed by sleep draughts and healing spells, or so he’d thought. Instead, he’d been locked away, kept under surveillance, and glamoured. 

Yet, though Kuroo had been prohibited from coming inside, Koutarou vaguely remembers that he’d still been there every day, hovering outside the door and talking about anything and everything under the sun just to keep Koutarou company in his isolation. 

And hearing Kuroo now, Koutarou realizes that though his entire world has been upended, some things haven’t changed - at least not this. It’s enough to help him pull a smile to his face, even as tears spring to his eyes and start to spill over. He wipes them hastily away.

“You’re totally my best bro,” he says, huffing out a laugh. Kuroo grins a shaky grin back at him. “Really, Kuroo. I’m not - I don’t think I’m gonna spiral.”

Kuroo nods slowly, still eyeing him carefully. “Walk and then home?”

“Walk and then home,” Koutarou repeats. 

Kuroo just looks at him for another moment before lunging forward and hugging the shit out of him. It’s a tight embrace, and it eeks a few more tears from Koutarou, but he feels surprisingly lighter when he steps back. One more punch to the shoulder, and then Kuroo’s heading away.

Koutarou watches him for a moment longer before walking in the opposite direction.

.

He hadn’t meant to lie to Kuroo, but his brief walk turns into a long one. 

He likes looking at the houses on the residential streets, the people walking quickly by on the main strips in the city. He likes the thought that - despite Yamiji still at the helm and though Koutarou is just the guild’s ace right now - that one day he’ll do better than any of them. Now that he knows the truth and has a better understanding of what his predecessors have done, he can do better. 

He almost doesn’t even realize he’s been wandering aimlessly for so long, taking breaks at the parks to people-watch and grabbing snacks from different neighborhoods, until he gets a message from Suzumeda and realizes it’s getting late in the evening. 

Suzumeda says there’s a dark energy report in one of his normal patrol areas. Koutarou figures Yamiji is letting Koutarou avoid him by going through her first. She says she and Sarukui are on the other side of the territory, Washio and Onaga had just ended a shift, and she’s looking for a hunter nearby to check it out.

He feels the itch at his fingertips, exhaustion pulling at his bones, and he decides, _fuck it._ He could do with a fight. He texts her back.

When he gets to the coordinates Suzumeda texted, the sun is already going down. It isn’t long before his dark energy tracking spell brings him to a head. He already has an illusion spell blanketing him from curious eyes even in the dark, and his sword is a comforting weight in one hand. It’s routine at this point to be on guard when getting close to a shadow creature. 

The way the marks on his wrists and neck itch, however, is not. 

He is almost compelled forward to the source of the dark energy, and unease ripples through him in a way that he’s never felt in his entire career. 

Normally, he’s antsy with anticipation for a fight, the challenge of it, the knowledge that he is doing good. Now, all of that is muted beneath the weight of what he knows and the tie to the shadow realm that tugs at him deep inside. 

He grips his sword tighter, warily drawing his power more to the surface in his free hand. It’s not the flash of strength he’s used to, but it’s strong enough.

After turning at the next corner, he stops when he sees the green shadow trail. It’s a telling sign that the creature that traversed to this realm is a hellhound when there’s a dark energy trail like this to follow. Hellhounds typically are trackers, specifically tied to an individual by their DNA - like a strand of hair or a splotch of blood. Once in this realm, they create a shadow trail to lead them to their target. 

Before him, he sees that the shadow trail that he’d been following is suddenly splitting in two. One of the lines continues on to the downtown strip, while the other moves before his very eyes. 

And then it latches onto him. He sees it suddenly connect to where his shadow marks are on his wrists and beneath his chin at his neck. He shifts in place to see if they follow him. They do. 

Gripping his sword tighter, he steadies his breath. 

When the hellhound comes up behind him, Koutarou is ready. What he is not ready for is the sheer size of it. Funneling power into his legs, he propels himself up high, leaving the beast to crash into the wall of the building. Made of shadow, it’s unharmed and leaves no damage to the physical structure. It skitters on its feet to charge at him again when he lands back down on the ground. 

Koutarou is already swinging his sword with both hands as the hellhound leaps forward with a roar. The force of the hit and the power he forces through the relic is enough to fling the creature away. He uses an enhanced jump again to propel himself after it. He gets in a few more blows before he leaps backwards to catch his breath. 

It’s getting harder to pull on his power, and he feels like an idiot for running into this alone. Kuroo had warned him to partner up. Yamiji had discussed the increasing power of the shadow creatures cropping up. Yet here Koutarou is, drained of power from his fight with Kenma this morning, emotionally drained from hearing everything from Yamiji, and overall just reeling from fucking going through the ringer today. 

The hellhound doesn’t have the same physical need to recover and quickly charges again, howling. Koutarou buys himself time by shoving a burning ball of gold energy at it, but somehow it swipes it away with one paw. Though smoke rises where it touched, the creature doesn’t slow down. 

Koutarou is almost too late in raising his sword as it leaps, and he collapses beneath the hellhound’s weight over him, his sword raised parallel across his body to keep its feral paws and gashing teeth away from his face. It’s only by channeling what remains of his power into the relic that he’s able to shield himself at all from being burned by his proximity to it. 

With one last big burst of power aimed directly through his sword, he flings the hellhound away with a roar. But he finds he’s cornered himself into an alley. The glow around his sword is slowly diminishing, and he feels anger and frustration flowing through him. 

_Fuck it,_ he thinks again. He’s a physical fighter. Despite having a high level of innate power, his strength has always been in his combat skills first and his spellcasting second. He levels his sword, funneling the very last dregs of his light energy into it. 

He charges forward. The hellhound is only a moment behind. Instead of plowing directly into it, Koutarou cuts swiftly to the right to slash at the creature’s side, slicing along its torso. It screams with fury, shadow viscera spilling in a steaming trail on the asphalt. 

He whirls quickly for another swift cut but instead is met with a sideswipe of claws along his back cutting deep enough to drop him to his knees with a cry of pain. But he can’t take a breath, because the hellhound rushes forward. Koutarou only has a moment to seek its weak point before he plants one foot down to find strength in his foundation, grips his sword with both hands again, and stabs it up with all his strength just as the creature leaps for him. 

The tip of his sword cuts right through its chest, and gravity does the rest to plunge it right into the shadow creature’s core. It doesn’t have the chance to make another sound as it dissipates into nothingness like dandelion seeds in the wind. 

Koutarou sobs in pain as he drops to all fours. The cuts from the hellhound’s claw marks feel like fire across his shoulder and back. Blood is already dripping around his torso from the wounds, flooding so quickly from his body that his hands are wet with it below him. He fumbles in his pocket for his phone.

He almost doesn’t notice when something blocks the faint moonlight spilling over him.

He glances up, eyes blurry from the pain of his wounds, and sees the figure of a man before him. Confused, he stares as the man takes slow step by slow step forward. He is a hazy figure, as if not all there. His outline wavers and settles in equal measure - unnaturally tall and skinny and then distorted and disproportionate. 

“So the prodigal son returns.” The man’s voice is smooth and deep, the tone lilting upward with something like amusement. But like the haziness to his figure, his voice is faint, almost echoing in the alley. 

Something about him is so off that Koutarou is frozen to his spot, vulnerable there on his hands and knees as he stares up at him, fear lancing through his body. The dark energy emanating from the stranger is so palpable, the rotten smell of it in the air so thick that Koutarou nearly gags.

“Who are you?” he asks, and he hates that his voice sounds so frail in the night. He does his best to push to a stand, using the wall next to him to get him there, but he wobbles on his feet, his knees weak. His sword is still in one hand, but dull without power. 

Instead of answering, the man slowly reaches out a hand. Green light gathers in his palm before splintering as it shoots right at Koutarou. 

He barely has the strength to stand, let alone dodge, and he _feels_ it when the dark energy latches onto the shadow marks around his neck and his wrists. The marks feel suddenly like a physical thing, so heavy and so cold that it burns. There’s a tug, and then he’s pulled back down to his knees. Chains made of green power shackle him by the rings of his shadow marks to the ground. 

He kneels there, struck dumb by the pain of the wounds on his back, the slow crawl of the shadow creature’s venom souring his blood, and the emptiness of his well of light energy power deep inside him. 

Weakly, he tugs against the weight of the manacles burning against his skin. It’s all he can do to lift his head as the man of shadow and dark energy steps closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo was this too much dialogue exposition? I need to practice writing more. I’m in awe of writers who weave explanations so organically into stories. Here was my clumsy attempt to begin bridging together misconceptions with the truth in this ‘verse. Woof. 
> 
> I hope to wrap up in the next few days. I can’t believe there’s just one more chapter to go! You might be wondering how I’ll pull this to a close with more questions popping up after this chapter - and its awful cliffhanger - and I will say that I don’t really envision the world ending here. The story might be over, but the universe lives on! And maybe I’ll do one shots. Or the sequel. Haha! No, that would definitely be crazy. Probably. Maybe.


	8. all that the light touches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An end is always a beginning, isn’t it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This last chapter was so hard to write! But I hope you like it. I am soft.

There, looming above him, the shadow wavers as moonlight spills around his figure like it can’t pierce through his form. Koutarou sees no face, no eyes to peer into, just the vague outline filled with a void darker than night. Yet physically it oscillates, at times letting in light as if it isn’t all there, not fully planted in this realm. It’s something not of this world, something that should never have been able to crossover. 

A few days ago, Yamiji had lent Koutarou a tome on high-level shadows. It sits on his coffee table in his apartment like a distant reminder. He had flipped through its pages, surprised by how little he really knew or remembered about some of the creatures. He and his team of shadow hunters were more than familiar with hellhounds, tsuchigumos, wendigos, daevas, and others. 

But the thing before him is something else entirely. As Koutarou pulls uselessly against the ring of dark energy encasing his neck to try to get a better look at the shadow, he feels horror build within him as the knowledge of what it is settles. One particular page from the tome flashes across his mind, a rough sketch of a person shackled by their neck and wrists, the chains plunging to the ground as if held deeper still than in this realm.

 _Who are you?_ Koutarou had asked. But part of him already feared he knew the answer.

This creature is only something he’s read about in tomes like Yamiji’s. Ancient, unnatural, and malevolent, demons are far from human. They are void of light entirely, instead made entirely of shadows and, according to some academics, perhaps even a source of dark energy itself in the shadow realm. 

And here Koutarou is, prostrated on the ground, helpless before one of those very creatures.

Next to him, now that he has depleted his light magic and is cut off entirely by the dark energy of his chains, he watches with a distant sense of resignation as his sword relic loses the last of its luster, the magic giving it shape withering slowly into nothingness. 

“I am,” the demon says, but then it pauses as if to consider. Without the movement for breath, it seems frozen during that silence, so unnaturally still, a menacing void even in the dark but for it’s wavering transparency. “All of you,” it says at last. “I am of you.”

Even as it speaks, the manacles burn so cold that Koutarou’s skin blisters where the marks shine green and black with dark energy. He is at once repulsed, near retching with disgust at the cloying feeling of them holding him captive, yet somehow compelled to be kept, like something in his body welcomes it. 

“And you are one of mine,” it says then, interest dripping from its voice. “The cursed child who went missing.” It hums, as if satisfied. It’s a chilling sound, and Koutarou realizes he’s trembling. 

“What do you want?” he chokes out, trying to buy time, desperate for a hint of anything to do to get out of this. But, wrought by pain and exhaustion, he keeps coming up blank. 

“Only what’s mine.” 

“I don’t belong to you,” Koutarou says instinctively. Yet he can’t hide the uncertainty in his voice because there is an inexorable pull inside him toward this creature, something that is latching onto the merciless gravity of dark energy holding him to the ground, inviting it in.

The demon is quiet again. It tilts its head, its neck turning stiffly, unnaturally with sharp jerks as if it doesn’t quite grasp human mannerisms. “Of course you do,” it says simply. 

The demon makes a small, dismissive movement with one hand. Sparks of green light trace a thread of dark energy to connect and dance over Koutarou’s shackles. A new wave of pain spears through him like jolts of electricity from where they connect around his neck and wrists. He cries out in agony as the sticky, repulsive feeling of dark energy swims through his veins, as if alighting the venom permeating through his blood. 

When he can think past the pain again, he sees black shadows creep along his skin from each shackle, climbing up his arms and down his hands, digging in like barbs along the way. Each pierce pulls up drops of blood that look almost black in the night. Koutarou makes a strangled sound of repulsion, tugging against his restraints.

“You see?” the demon says. “I’ve been looking for you, and all my children just like you.” 

Koutarou is nearly blind with pain and overcome with fear at the creeping darkness crawling over his arms. He can feel it inching up and down his throat from the ring of shadow marks and dark energy holding him captive there, choking him. 

Yet there is something about the demon’s words that snares his attention in the midst of his pained stupor. It ignites a small spark deep down inside him, where perhaps it had lay hidden for most of his life. 

Nearby, Akaashi is probably cleaning up his shop and pulling on his sweater sleeves. Kenma is probably setting up more shadow creature traps and frowning. Kuroo is probably passed the fuck out while recovering from Komi’s heavy healing spell. Down the street, countless unseeing people are going about their business, shopkeepers and bakers, parents and children, lovers and friends. 

They’re innocent - all of them. 

Inside Koutarou, the little itchy golden spark sputters - and then it begins to smolder. 

The familiar sensation given a name from the truths that had been kept from him grows and spreads, as if it had been lurking, waiting for the moment to snap. Despite the icy cold he feels down to his bones, warmth begins to blossom from the compelling pull of dark energy. Inside him, it twists and mutates, transforming into spun gold. He shakes his head, trying to focus on this strange source of energy, reveling in the heat of its power, its sticky warmth. He can barely feel the blisters boil on a new etching on the skin around his wrist as he focuses on that power. 

He thinks then of the shadow marks blemishing his skin, twin sets to those of Akaashi and Kenma, victims of the light energy curse that has ensnared them all. 

This demon - this _thing_ is hunting _them._ It has traversed realms somehow, right under the light guilds’ noses. He realizes as he stares down at his chains that the green energy is a match for the hellhounds he’s seen, that his guild hunters have been encountering and fighting and defeating increasingly around this city, _his_ city. It’s hunting them, ‘the cursed children,’ it said. 

And it has the _fucking nerve_ to put shackles on him. 

The little flame inside him has begun to blaze, growing with the heat of his protective instinct and fury. And it builds. And builds, and builds. 

Until it combusts. 

It is unlike any light of power Koutarou has ever felt in his life, different from the explosive wave of energy that poured out of him this morning from his hurt and his confusion and his protective rage. 

This power is an inferno. And it _feeds._ It even seems to become strengthened by the demon’s dark energy digging its hooks into him.

Before his eyes, gold light climbs to the surface, burning away the darkness creeping over his skin and into his blood. It seeps like acid across the manacles, making the green energy spill over his neck like oil repelled and sliding off a surface.

But it doesn’t stop there. Where the demon’s power latches onto him in threads of green light, gold power ripples across the lines right to the demon’s palm. 

“I don’t belong to you,” Koutarou chokes out over the power roaring within. 

The demon takes a step back. Koutarou can almost see its fury rise like an aura around it, its shadow growing, undulating tall and broad and then thinning out, the dark void of its body darkening somehow still. 

Yet the gold light continues to trail along the connection until it begins to climb the demon’s palm. The demon begins tearing at its own shadow form, swiping away the bright lines as they become branded across its wrists. 

With a shrill, unearthly piercing shriek, the demon’s figure wavers before Koutarou’s vision once, twice, before it seems to relinquish its form in this realm. Soon, it’s just a shadow dissipating into dust that fades away in the moonlight. 

Koutarou collapses onto the ground, breathing heavily. He’s still glowing faintly, still smoldering inside as he lays there sobbing out breaths through the pain from his back. 

It’s only because he’s flat on the ground that he sees the casting begin to shine a few feet from where the demon stood. There, a sigil alights with a flash of bright green. Koutarou coughs out a wet breath, thinking vaguely that that can’t be a good sound, and he forces himself up onto his hands and knees. As he struggles to find the strength to push up to a stand, he watches as a hulking shadow pieces itself together before him. 

It’s not the demon, at least. 

But it is another hellhound. 

_I can’t catch a fucking break here,_ Koutarou thinks, groaning. 

He isn’t enough in his right mind to make an active choice. Survival instinct prompts him to sway to his feet and take off at a staggering run out of the alley. He slams his wounded shoulder into the brick wall on his way around the corner with a frustrated grunt of pain, but he’s off running again before the hellhound fully manifests its physical form. 

Behind him, it howls. 

Koutarou doesn’t know where that flame inside him came from, but no matter how much he tries to call it up again, to find any inkling of dark energy to help him move. He can’t seem to reach it, or he doesn’t quite know how. And without it, he only makes it a few blocks more. His feet drag and stumble, red drops of blood left like a trail in his wake. He collapses again. 

All he can hear at that moment is the loud thud of his slowing heart; the wet, sluggish sound of each breath he drags in; and the ringing of the night’s silence around him.

The next thing he registers is the light sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. For the first time in his life, Koutarou feels the heavy weight of resignation. But then his ears hone in on the familiar voice speaking to him frantically. “-to-san. Bokuto-san. _Koutarou!”_

Koutarou blinks his eyes open, unable to recall even closing them. It sounds like Akaashi. _Am I that far gone already?_ he thinks with a vague sense of worry. 

But then, before him, Akaashi’s face swims across his vision. Koutarou shakes his head to clear it. “‘kaashi?” he says, but it comes out in a slur. “‘kash - you gotta - you gotta run.” 

He hears the roar before a ball of blue-green light sails over him. The hellhound is blown to the side, rolling away. In that time, Koutarou feels warmth, slick and sticky, slide along his back. The pain from his wounds slowly ebbs out of him, like it’s being drawn away. In the aftermath of that agony, he feels lighter, like he’s floating. 

It could be that it’s because he is actually floating though. When he blinks his eyes open again, he is about waist height next to Akaashi, hovering off the ground on a sheet of cool blue-green power. He feels the night air rushing by him as Akaashi runs, pulling him along as if he’s on a sleigh made entirely of magic. 

“It’s all right,” Akaashi is muttering. “You’re going to be fine. We’re going to get to the shop. We just have to - “ 

Akaashi cuts himself off and stops abruptly, stopping Koutarou beside him with a quick gesture of his hand. He then raises both hands as his power pools between his palms in that deep shine of color before it flies forward again. There’s another yelp from the hellhound, and then Akaashi is dragging him around a corner. 

“‘kaashi,” he croaks out desperately because Akaashi has led them into an alley. “Help me up. I’ll hold it off.”

“Be quiet, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi says sternly. Koutarou is mildly surprised at his tone. Akaashi’s hand is firm as he presses Koutarou’s shoulder down when he tries to get up off the hovering slate of energy beneath him. 

Koutarou’s mind is so fuzzy from the sudden lack of pain thanks to Akaashi’s stasis spell that he can’t help it that he just lays back with a tired huff.

The hellhound rounds the corner, leaping at them with another howl, and Koutarou feels his heart jump into his throat. For a moment, the creature seems to freeze, its long and deadly claws curled, it’s teeth dripping with venomous ichor. 

But it never lands. 

Instead, an intricate, bright yellow web of energy snaps up from the ground, encapsulating the hellhound neatly as it cinches tightly closed from the top with a snap and a flash. There, it hangs, a yellow glowing sack of dark energy, moving with the hellhound’s desperate thrashing in its attempts to escape. 

Akaashi doesn’t give it a second glance as he gestures at Koutarou’s makeshift gurney to move it forward, already taking off at a run around the trap and out of the alley. 

Koutarou has the fleeting curious thought about whether that’s how Kenma trapped Kuroo. Despite how his night is going, he coughs out a laugh at the image of cat-Kuroo yowling in a sack of Kenma’s power. 

Akaashi glances down at him. “Stay with me, Bokuto-san,” he says.

“’m with you,” Koutarou replies. He wonders if Akaashi even heard him. He can barely hear himself now. 

He only realizes they’ve entered the shop when he feels the ghost of his own protection sigil wash lightly over him. It flashes brightly once, with an echoing flash of blue-green - a second protection sigil powering to life - as yet another hellhound crashes into it. It shrieks, lighting up with crackles of green dark energy where it makes contact with the sigils. That’s the only sound it makes before it too is suddenly scooped up into another web of flashing yellow light. The containment spell trap hovers there outside the store like a gift as Koutarou stares. And in its wake is a heavy, peaceful silence but for Akaashi’s quiet murmur nearby.

“Kenma. Kenma,” Akaashi is saying, and Koutarou flops his head to the side to see Akaashi rummaging behind the counter with his phone to his ear. “Bokuto’s hurt. It’s bad.” He pauses, then says, “Please come back. I need you.” 

Koutarou seems to blink, and suddenly he’s on the counter on his belly, resting his cheek against its cool surface and blinking sluggishly at Akaashi’s t-shirt that’s stained with blood. He sees his mother’s charm dangling there before him. Tears spring to his eyes with relief and just a small bit of happiness warming him. He’s glad Akaashi kept it, even after Bokuto hurt him. 

Listlessly, he raises a hand to tap at it. The warmth of Akaashi’s hand intercepts as he enfolds both over Koutarou’s. Koutarou smiles dopily at the witch. Then the warmth disappears, his hand placed gently on the counter. 

His back is cold then, and he feels faint tugging as Akaashi peels his shirt away behind him. 

“Bokuto-san,” Akaashi says, ducking down so he can look into Koutarou’s face. Hands cup his jaw, tilting his head slightly, and he blinks dazedly back. 

“Hi, Akaamshi,” he mutters. 

Akaashi shuts his mouth for a moment, and then he says gently, “Hello, Bokuto-san. Listen carefully, please. I need to remove the stasis spell on your wounds. I’m going to use a salve to pull the shadow venom from you, and then I’m going to use dark energy to heal you. All right? Please don’t fight me. It’s going to hurt, but I need you to let me in, and I need you to stay awake.”

“Sure,” he says, saddened by the loss of contact as Akaashi pulls his hands away again. “‘nything for you.” 

Akaashi seems to pause again, his hand hovering in Koutarou’s peripheral vision. He feels a light brush against his cheek and that sweet warmth pushing his hair over his forehead before it draws away completely. “Be strong for me, Koutarou,” Akaashi says quietly.

And then, again, Koutarou is overcome by agony. 

///

Bokuto’s shirt and coat had been drenched in blood, so much of it that Keiji had had to peel it off his body. 

And Keiji can’t help it. He’s crying. He’s crying right over Bokuto’s wound, and it’s terribly unsanitary. 

He’s trying to be strong. Bokuto is so out of it, has lost so much blood, yet he’s still just so utterly himself - bright and sweet. It’s enough all at once that Akaashi has to hold back a sob.

It’s bad. It’s just so, so bad. There are four deep claw marks across Bokuto’s right shoulder all the way across his back down to his lower torso. At the left shoulder, it looks as if it even hit down to bone. Not only that, but thin tendrils of black venom are visibly webbing across his skin, evidence of the shadow venom’s infection in his bloodstream. Around his neck and wrists, he can see blisters on each shadow mark, like they’d all been burned into him anew.

Keiji does not have enough power to fight this. He’s sure Kenma doesn’t either. Keiji is terrified that even with the both of them pooling together their energy, it still might not be enough to save Bokuto.

But he can’t just stand by and do nothing. Not when he just found this man - someone apart from Kenma that, for the first time, Keiji cannot bear to lose. 

He pulls out his knife and quickly cuts deep gashes in both of his hands. It is an unfamiliar pain. It’s sharp at first, and then heavy and distracting. Keiji rarely has channeled so much dark energy that he’s needed blood for a spell. He trembles at the thought of the new shadow marks he’s sure will be branded into his wrists for this working. 

But there is no choice here. The alternative - to leave Bokuto bleeding, dying - does not even cross Keiji’s mind.

Through his tears, he watches his own blood splatter and swirl into the mess of blood already pooling in the small dip of Bokuto’s back. With one finger, he traces cleansing runes. Then he smothers his hands in the cleansing salve from the squat jar he placed next to Bokuto on the counter. As gently as he can, he places his hands directly over the deepest parts of the wounds, funneling his dark energy into the natural elements of the herbs of the salve to alight and strengthen their properties. 

Bokuto’s body spasms and he cries out in pain at the shock of the sudden burn of it. Keiji presses firmly down to hold him steady against the counter. 

The pull of the shadows is so heady, heavy, and cloying. It’s worse than he thought. 

Keiji is nearly overpowered by his own terror then. He is not the strong one. He never has been. 

Kenma has always been the strong one. He has such a solid grasp on his own power, familiar with it since his early childhood. And from that familiarity and experience was born a rigid control over that repulsive pull of dark energy within him that Keiji has always shied away from himself. 

When he’d gotten his marks, Keiji had done his very best to ignore them, to hide them, to shove away all thoughts and acknowledgement of that foreign compulsion thrumming within from the new and unwelcome power. It was at once out of his grasp and overwhelming to him. It was the last connection he had to his parents, to that awful night when Kenma pulled him from his burning home. Just thinking about him chokes him with dread and grief so overwhelming he can almost taste the smoke from that night. 

That first year, as their marks healed, Kenma had made him learn some magic - defensive spells, ones for protection, others for cleansing. Over the years, Keiji had made routine use of these essential runes and sigils to keep himself and Kenma safe and hidden as they ran from the light guilds that had killed their parents and other dark energy wielders - and from the creature with the green energy that seems to follow them to every city they landed in. Over time, Keiji found that the barest hint of dark energy could help him with smaller tasks. It allowed him to tap into the natural energy of herbs and other organics. He had an affinity for it, which allowed him to avoid diving too deep into his own connection to the shadow realm. 

But now, Bokuto’s wounds were so thick with dark energy, gruesome with so much shadow venom that Keiji’s hands feel like they’re sinking in it. His own dark magic, as weak as it is, is called to it, sticking to it, and he keeps losing the thread of the natural energy of the salve that will help him beat it back. 

Beneath his hands, Bokuto writhes in pain, and Keiji shuts his eyes, trying to focus. “Stay with me, Bokuto-san,” he says, but he’s mostly reassuring himself at this point. 

He sends a bit more dark energy through his palms, frightened at the bright glow emanating from his own hands - brighter than he’s ever created. He is at once trying to rein his own fragile power and trying to cleanse away the venom, but it’s a fight he keeps losing. The venom continues to spread and eat away at his blue-green light almost faster than he can drive it forward. 

In the next moment though, he feels a flash of energy. It is a comforting warmth, like that of his favorite cardigan or a shared blanket late at night on the couch, yet underlaid with a steely strength. 

Keiji hears himself sob with relief and takes a quick glance up, seeing Kenma’s lightly glowing yellow form.

“It’s ok,” Kenma says evenly. He has one bloodied hand firmly pressed over Keiji’s, offering up his power to Keiji’s own healing light. 

“He’s so far gone,” Keiji whispers. 

Kenma meets his gaze. “Then find him, Keiji.” 

Keiji sucks in a deep, steadying breath and closes his eyes. With Kenma’s power feeding into his own, Keiji feels less afraid of confronting the shadows. Kenma is the strong one, and he is here now. In the dark, with just yellow and blue-green power as company, Keiji works to burn away the webbing of venom in Bokuto’s blood and dives deeper to seek the source of dark energy, the seed of power that strengthens the infection. 

The salve beneath his hands is nearly sapped by now though. A tendril of doubt digs into Keiji’s heart.

But then he feels Kenma again, his power burning brighter. Kenma is usually the one who calls up power, the one who is the primary caster on spells. Kenma is the river where Akaashi is the leaf following its current, trusting that it will continue to move forward.

But now it is Keiji who has the reins of Bokuto’s life in his hands, and he can’t allow himself to stumble. 

In this last push of combined power, Keiji guides them deeper. Instead of the source of the dark energy, however, he finds, incredibly, a spark of gold. 

“Bokuto-san,” he whispers. The gold wavers. “Koutarou,” Keiji says more firmly, and the gold spark crackles. 

It is unlike the waves of light energy he’d felt earlier today. Instead, this power is nearly akin to his own. But because it is Bokuto’s, Keiji finds brilliance and warmth in its depths. He draws on it, feels it respond to him, beseeching Bokuto for trust, to pour himself forward to fight against the shadows that threaten to overwhelm him.

Relief springs forward from this strange well of dark energy - along with hope, certainty, and, miraculously, unerring _faith._ From that lone spark blossoms a flame of golden power, burning with an ease of conviction that is foreign to Keiji himself, but so familiar in its essence as so very much Koutarou. It continues to reach, to pour itself into Keiji’s hands, entrusting itself into Keiji’s power.

In turn, Keiji grasps onto it, encouraging it to entwine with his own. There, in the shared comingling of their power, Keiji has the odd sense of feeling seen and welcome, of being unafraid to open himself up to his own power, guided by Kenma’s rigid control, strengthened by Bokuto’s own gold light. 

It’s almost like relief to succumb to the level of power then, like a balm, and still, he is met with trust.

And at that moment, the tide of dark energy feels like it is nothing at all to face. Together they beat it back, becoming instead a wave of light to overwhelm the shadows. 

The next moment, Keiji blinks. Gold, yellow, and blue-green spots dance before his eyes. He’s sitting on his knees by the counter, his face feels cold and wet with tears, his breaths are coming out in gasps, and Kenma is wrapping his palms with bandages. 

When he struggles to pull his hands away and sit up, Kenma makes impatient shushing noises and pulls his hands back. “Just breathe for a minute,” Kenma says. “You did it. Your witch hunter will be ok.”

Keiji sinks back and realizes he can hear Bokuto breathing above him. He closes his eyes and lets his head thud back against the counter.

///

They take Bokuto back to their place. Kenma rolls his eyes when Akaashi insists on putting Bokuto on his bed instead of on the couch, despite still being a bloody mess, but he complies easily enough when he gets a glance of Akaashi’s eyes still swimming with tears and the tense lines on his face.

Bokuto is still completely out. But his breathing is even and steady, his wounds healed enough to be bandaged and without risk of further infection, from the shadow or otherwise, and his face is lax without pain as the stasis and renewed healing spells hold. 

Akaashi sinks down to sit leaning against the headboard beside him, his hand brushing back Bokuto’s hair. “We should call someone,” he says. “Hunters may come looking for him, like he came looking for Kuroo.” 

Kenma feels a scowl spreading across his face, and he catches amusement light across Akaashi’s face. 

“Kenma,” Akaashi says insistently. 

With an irritated sigh, Kenma pats down Bokuto’s cut-up duster coat and surfaces one hand with the witch hunter’s phone. Unsurprisingly, his emergency contact is Kuro. He hands the phone to Akaashi, who just stares at him evenly. 

“I may hate you the least,” Kenma says, drawing his hand back, “but sometimes I still do hate you.” On his way out, it’s a near thing, but he manages not to slam the bedroom door closed behind him at Akaashi’s quiet laugh. 

When Kuroo picks up the call, his voice is groggy with sleep, and then something akin to delight when he recognizes Kenma’s voice, but soon, he sounds worried enough about his friend and won’t let Kenma hang up until he gets an address so he can come over. Kenma decidedly is not nervous and occupies himself with a game on his portable console. 

Soon enough, though, the knock on the door comes, and he finds himself needing to take a deep breath. Two witch hunters in their home in one night. What has his life even become? 

Surprisingly, his hands slightly shake as he opens the door, but deep inside, he recognizes that it isn’t from fear or worry; those are no longer feelings he has in relation to this hunter. 

Kuro flashes him a distracted smile. Kenma eyes him before beckoning him to follow. He knocks once before opening the door, and he sees that Akaashi has fallen asleep sitting up as usual. Kuro is smirking as he walks over. He runs a glowing red hand over Bokuto’s form before nodding to himself, and then he follows Kenma back out to the living room.

“Akaashi is gifted with healing and natural magic. So as you can see, your witch hunter friend is fine,” Kenma says, curling up into a seat on the couch. He pulls a blanket over his lap and powers up his game again, actively avoiding the heavy gaze that settles on him. “You can go now.” 

As usual, Kuro does the opposite of what is requested. Instead, he takes a seat in the middle of the couch, covering his mouth with one hand as he yawns and stretching the other up high. Kenma only sends a single glance sideways, but even that feels like too much attention to be spared. 

“It’s so strange,” Kuro says after a moment. “You won’t believe how much shit went down after this morning. I didn’t think things could get much worse than you and Bo having it out like that, which, by the way, was fucking cool as shit.” 

Kenma bites on his lip so he doesn’t smile. He doesn’t want to smile, and Kuro is not deserving of any smiles. At least, he tries to convince himself of that. Despite himself, something pleasant and warm winds its way through him, and it has nothing to do with the heavy scarf and blanket covering him.

“But even still, I kept thinking about you,” Kuro says. He sighs as he leans back against the couch cushions. When Kenma hazards a glance at him, Kuro is staring blankly at the dark screen of the TV ahead of them. “Even without the bond - as short-lived as it was - I still feel - “ he pauses then. 

Kenma can’t help it that his avatar walks right off a cliff in his game. The music is a light, tinny noise in the room, but it’s so quiet compared to the loud thumps of his heart in his chest. When Kuro doesn’t say another word, Kenma looks over at him for real this time. 

Kuro isn’t looking at him directly, but at the console in Kenma’s hands. “I still missed you.” He smiles, but it’s a sad thing that doesn’t seem to fit his face, like it has settled incorrectly - like it doesn’t belong there. 

Kenma swallows, and he swears Kuro can hear it, hears the witch hunter shift slightly in place as if reacting to the sound. 

“Will you let me in, Kenma,” Kuro says quietly. 

This time, when Kenma looks at him, again, there’s no hint of that ever-present smirk on his face. In its place is that soft smile that Kenma is growing used to. It looks how the bond felt - warm and inviting, genuine and full of trust despite everything else. 

“I’m not going to sleep with you,” Kenma replies. 

Kuro just shakes his head slowly, that smile unwavering - brightening even. “I don’t need that,” he says easily. “I just want to be with you.” 

And the way he says it makes Kenma think again about being alone with him in the back room of the shop, Kuro looking down at him with that same soft smile and saying, as if it is the simplest thing in the entire world, _I like you._

Kenma is sure then that he looks uncomfortable. He drops his eyes, but then he adjusts his scarf laying one thick end out like a trail over the blanket. 

In the next instant, he sees a flash of brilliant red light, and then a familiar, solid weight settles onto his lap on top of the scarf. Kenma’s hand hovers for a moment before it finally settles lightly on Kuro’s back. 

He slides his fingers gently through the soft, soft fur, and relaxes against the couch cushions at the sound of Kuro’s quiet purr. 

///

Koutarou stirs when sunlight warms his face. He feels numb, still exhausted even as he wakes, but he is so very warm. He soon realizes why when he moves to push himself up. There is weight along his left side, the source of the heat. Tilting his head to the side, he sees a messy head of silky dark curls above the face that is pressed into his shoulder, one arm is thrown haphazardly across Koutarou’s bare chest, and one leg sprawled over his left thigh. 

It is not at all the worst way to wake up, he thinks fondly as he looks down at Akaashi. Rather, it’s what he’d hoped for first thing this morning, before his entire world was changed, a new light cast on his entire life and what he knew of it. And despite all that, strangely, this is still what he had hoped for even throughout the day. 

He just didn’t think he’d ever get to have it. 

Koutarou curls his right arm around so he can brush back Akaashi’s bangs. His shoulder twinges, and he recalls the hellhound’s claws raking through his flesh, but he only feels that taught sensation of a healing wound. Beneath his fingertips, Akaashi’s hair is as soft as he remembers from the other night. 

When he looks down, he realizes what seems so odd about the sight of Akaashi’s arm across his chest. He’s never seen the witch’s bare arms before, not in all the times he’s visited the shop or helped him with his wares. Akaashi never even pushes up his sleeves when working on his products, instead opting for long rubber gloves if needed. But this morning, he’s dressed only in a t-shirt, stained with what is likely Koutarou’s own blood, and his shadow marks are in full view. 

There on his wrist are a set of still-angry red blisters, fresh as if newly branded. And inside, Koutarou knows where they must have come from. Evidence of it is in the way Akaashi’s hands are wrapped, red and brown stains seeping through where his palms are. 

Koutarou is grateful to be saved, but staring at those marks, he is also torn with guilt. 

He never realized that dark energy could be used for things like healing or protection. He thought it was only ever used for darkness - seeding corruption and sowing distrust and toying with consent, for summoning shadows. But isn’t that just the way of the world - the lines blurred between light and dark, good and evil; the deeper current of intention and will and history convoluting what otherwise might have been clear. 

And here, bandaged and beautiful beside him, lays evidence of the lines blurred. 

Akaashi, his sharp, bright little witch, sighs in his sleep and curls closer as if seeking warmth. Koutarou rolls closer, gently wrapping an arm around Akaashi’s waist, drawing him in. 

It seems like it was so long ago that Koutarou stood late in the night before this very man, staring down at his streetlight-limned figure. He had felt like he stood on the precipice of darkness and light then, to be thrown at the simplest whim of this man from one into the other easily, so easily. 

Yet as he closes his eyes and leans into the inviting warmth against him, he finds he’s right there in the middle between the two, embracing where he lands, stronger still for it with truth to steady him. Maybe there’s still a lot ahead for them, questions still to be answered, an enemy to face.

Even still, somehow, as Akaashi breathes another warm breath against him, Koutarou finds himself tipped, irrevocably, into elation. 

///

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we made it! I suppose this doesn’t feel like an end, per se, but with this one story, I really intended to just create a world around Bokuto, Akaashi, Kuroo, and Kenma - with magic and swords. Can’t go wrong with magic and swords, right? Bokuto’s muscles, am I right? That was the start.
> 
> But once I started fleshing out their individual stories, motivations, and relationships with one another in terms of how they might have been shaped by this world, it just seemed like more than a one-shot. I wanted to dive into how they interacted in various ways - touching on their biases and misconceptions and misunderstandings and how those intersected (which was terribly). That turned into building a story around bringing light to hard truths and how the truth can shape or change people. And in the end, it became, I hope, a story about love - familial and romantic both - borne from empathy and compassion.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it. I’m so, so touched by your reactions and responses to this little world and completely thrilled to have chatted with you all in the comments. It’s only been a couple of weeks since I posted the first chapter, but it’s been a whirlwind of emotions and joy. You helped me to experience the story in new and different ways through your perspectives, and I am the happiest! 
> 
> In love and light,  
> Meeks
> 
> P.S. I made a Twitter account - @mmeeks00. Send me recs!


End file.
